Mumbai: Just days before the most defining exams of her young life, Ritika Barat found herself staring down a diagnosis no teenager should have to confront. What began as a frightening suspicion of ovarian cancer led to multiple hospital visits. It wasn’t malignant — a benign tumour, the doctors clarified — but it meant surgery, medications, and a lingering struggle with neural side effects that trail her to this day.Barely out of the hospital gown, she walked into her Class 10 CBSE exams and wrote her way to a spectacular 99.2%, topping her batch at Ryan International School, Goregaon. Recently, she went on to script another triumph — 97.6% in her Class 12 CBSE exams at Ryan International, Kandivli. “It was a storm, I just had to weather,” she said. “With the boards and everything else happening, it took time for things to settle inside me.”A self-taught scholar, Ritika found her own rhythm in the chaos. Through it all, her parents and younger brother formed the unshakable scaffolding around her. Today, Ritika lives with the silent aftershocks of that ordeal — persistent headaches, a tremor in her hands — but she refuses to let them write the ending of her story. “It’s behind me. I can only move forward.” Mumbai: Just days before the most defining exams of her young life, Ritika Barat found herself staring down a diagnosis no teenager should have to confront. What began as a frightening suspicion of ovarian cancer led to multiple hospital visits. It wasn’t malignant — a benign tumour, the doctors clarified — but it meant surgery, medications, and a lingering struggle with neural side effects that trail her to this day.Barely out of the hospital gown, she walked into her Class 10 CBSE exams and wrote her way to a spectacular 99.2%, topping her batch at Ryan International School, Goregaon. Recently, she went on to script another triumph — 97.6% in her Class 12 CBSE exams at Ryan International, Kandivli. “It was a storm, I just had to weather,” she said. “With the boards and everything else happening, it took time for things to settle inside me.“A self-taught scholar, Ritika found her own rhythm in the chaos. Through it all, her parents and younger brother formed the unshakable scaffolding around her. Today, Ritika lives with the silent aftershocks of that ordeal — persistent headaches, a tremor in her hands — but she refuses to let them write the ending of her story. “It’s behind me. I can only move forward.”