Self Made

“ Yaar can you tell me how to make an email id?”, asked the guy sitting next to me in the computer lab. I looked at the 19 year old guy dressed neatly in a shirt and pants, puzzled. After all how many 19 year olds have I met who do not have an email id let alone not knowing how to make one? I opened gmail and showed him how an email account is setup. He smiled and told me his name was Adit and he was from the Metallurgy department; I told him my name and my department. A sort of friendship was struck. It was the beginning of our first year; 660 of us had cracked the JEE and got into IIT-Bombay. All of us had made a lot of friends in a few hours. Times like those are very rare; when you make a new beginning and look into the world differently.

After the CS101 lab, Adit hung around chatting with me, as we walked back to the hostel. The next question after department is always where you are from and which coaching institute [:)]. “ I am from a village near Patna”, he told me with a shy smile. I urged him on, asking him for the name of the village, how big it was, how fun life was etc etc. The village of Jorarpur as it was called was in a place called Harnaut not too far from Patna. You could say that it was also 160 kms from civilization; with electricity for just 3 hours and the only source of drinking water being the village well. Adit’s face had clearly shown he was from a simple background, but his pleasant demeanour gave a different perspective to life.
“Life was fun yaar. I still cant believe that I landed here. To think that my father is still illiterate and breaking his back”, he said with a smile. I didn’t know how to react, should I say , ‘Nice..good shit...’ or ‘Sorry..’ . I said neither and goaded him on. I learnt that his father still earned around Rs 80 per day. I sort of choked, the treat that my uncle gave me the day before alone was 10 times that.

I was in awe of the guy and asked for more. The walk to the hostel was not long, so I made it long, insisting on going to the lake, so that I could talk more. “Life was simple, my father and mother used to always tell me , Pado....Bach Jao...(Study...Save Yourself). And right from an early age, I was studying, to save myself I guess. My friends and I used to play cricket after school till it was night, then I used to go home and study some things. Most of the time there wasn’t any electricity. Candles are the best. They are bright and don’t smell or make much noise. Kerosene was expensive and the burner made a noise that i didn’t like and Diyas aren’t that bright. Those days were fun playing, roaming around and studying...”, Adit said, remniscencing the old days.

I asked him when he heard of IIT. “I don’t remember but 5 years ago Rambhai from my village also made it to IIT. Everyone knows that IIT means money and respect. I was in it just for the money. I knew that if I studied and got admission here, rest of my life would be okay. My parents knew, and made me study. Though they didn’t know what I studied. They always used to say.. ‘Tum bada aadmi banega’, it was my father’s dream that I become an engineer. He didn’t know what an engineer was. All he knew was that the man who made the factory where he works in was an engineer. He wanted me to be the man who made factories rather than the worker who worked in those factories.”, Adit said with a hint of tears at his eyes. I felt my own eyes becoming slightly moist. All of us had dreams. There is no better satisfaction in life than seeing all that one dreamt has become reality.

Adit continued talking about his simple old life. His family was sort of well off, they never went hungry any day. The eighty rupees was enough to live. He told me that the days before the school year starts, the food that they ate were of the cheaper kind, so that there was enough money to buy books. Adit had gotten a decent 85% in his 10th class boards. “A week after the results, I and my father went to Patna. There was this coaching institute in Patna which taught and gave scholarships to poor talented students. I went and gave the exam and tried my luck. I had missed the cutoff by some 5 marks. But the sir there told me that he will see for 2 to 3 weeks whether I was dedicated or not. And then I studied and studied and studied. ...”, Adit beamed.

“There were 30 of us staying, eating and studying together. The sir was a kind man. He along with another sir, put their own money for teaching us. The fee that they demanded was dedication and hardwork. And none of us wanted to blow the gift from god. We all struggled. There were days when I may have studied more than 12 hours. I only noticed those days when I dropped down and slept head on the table. We had exams quite frequently. The sir used to give prizes for the toppers of his exams. Sometimes it would be sweets and sometimes it would be wrist watches. I got a wrist watch once when I topped once. Those 2 years were the best years. I knew that I would become somebody. Paseena se khushi kabhi kabhi milta hai..(Sometimes happiness comes from sweat). All of us helped each other out. All of us were from mostly poor backgrounds. That sort of united us. We all wanted to go forward in life. It was sort of like a war. We were preparing for the battle of our lives. A good rank meant a highway from poverty to prosperity.

The big day came and all of us gave the JEE. I had prayed the day before; I knew that nothing would stop me. It was sort of tough, but I answered everything I knew. The best day of my life was the day the result was announced. I had gotten an AIR (All India Rank) 2109. Both my parents cried that day. Their lives finally meant something. The hours of back breaking work at the factory had born fruit. They couldn’t read the call letter or understand 2109 or anything else. They just knew that their son had made it. ....”, Adit stopped talking for some time, caught up in the past. He closed his eyes looking up to the moon above the lake. I understood that he was thanking the guy above. I was humbled. I thought of myself as an achiever, going the distance when most others had told me that I wouldn’t go the distance. And here was a person who had actually gone the distance. There weren’t too many people like him at IIT-Bombay. Most of the guys were pretty well off, not too bothered with the problems in life. Many had been forced into coaching institutes and had studied hard and gotten through.
“I am proud of where I am coming from. I can now go anywhere.....”, said Adit confidently.

I began to realize how awesome a place IIT was. It was not the money or the facilities. Its the IITians that make IIT’s so awed. People who at least at some point of time had fire burning in their bellies. There are big guns who will go the distance. Sometimes I find it rather funny. People who have absolutely nothing in lives somehow stand up fight and come up while intelligent people who are capable and have all the facilities in the world somehow waste the lucky life given to them. Maybe its supposed to be like. Success is for those who deserve it. If the intelligent and spoilt rich kids everywhere in India started working sincerely, people like Adit could be sidelined. Maybe its all meant to work that way.........