|
It was the evening of April 18,
1998. Poornima was trekking back from her school. Normally, it took
her an hour. Twelve years old and living in a small town, where her
father was running a grocery shop, she was the only child of her
parents. On account of the media explosion, for the past one year,
she was dreaming to own a home computer to bring out the best in
her, although her inner feeling was that it will not come true. Her
father, an illiterate, was wondering what was the need for computer
for a girl studying in seventh standard.
It was her good fortune that one day a rich
businessman, Mr Brown, from London, involved in several charity
programmes worldwide, visited her school. He had asked his personal
assistant to enable him to know how rural India was improving. The
school had no advance information about his visit. He spoke to the
headmaster, indicating that he wanted to meet some of the brightest
students on a one-to-one basis.
Poornima was the first student to talk to him.
She spoke broken English, but with confidence. She told him that a
P.C. would change her whole life. After all, this generation of
computer buffs are not necessarily graduates. Mr Brown was a little
taken aback. No doubt he was impressed with her enthusiasm and
confidence. He could visualise that probably another Bill Gates was
in the offing. If she turned out to be successful, he would also get
due credit.
After a month, Poornima received a Pentium-4
computer with all the accessories from Mr Brown, wishing her all the
best. Her joy knew no bounds. She explored all the facilities the
equipment offered her. Her regular studies were running
simultaneously.
Once she topped her district in the plus-two
examinations, she just walked into a nearby government engineering
college. By that time, she had almost become a self-taught genius in
computers. She was writing programmes, besides mastering the
hardware as well. It was a rare combination. She was the envy of her
collegemates. In course of time she was picked up for a good job by
an MNC in the campus recruitment. After a year's training, she was
sent to New York on the condition that she must come back after the
project was over.
One evening, when she was walking back from
office to her apartment, which she shared with two other colleagues,
she accidentally bumped into Mr. Brown. They could identify each
other. He had come there on a business visit. They walked into a
restaurant and in an hour's time she narrated the whole history from
his visit to her town and her present job. She asked him how she
could repay his gesture. Pat came the reply, "Once your project gets
over, go back and serve the same organisation. After making enough
money for your future, take up to teaching computer science in the
rural areas in your motherland. Let that be your life's mision.
There are thousands of Poornimas still needing help."
Today, her old town has become a district and she
is the head of an NGO training the rural womenfolk, including
housewives, in computers. How we wish there were more such souls
around, not greedy about earning petrodollars or making it big in
any G-8 countries.
V Balasubramanian
|
