Grit & Chemistry in her DNA

When Pragya Verma saw her IIT results at a cybercafe in Patna, her eyes became moist. In just moments, the stress of a 17-year journey completed in the sparing presence of her father, went away.

“My whole life flashed before me!” Her rank was 3001 out of 5000. Pragya, now in her fourth year at IIT Mumbai, is studying Integrated MSc programme in Chemistry.

Her mother and three siblings — a brother and two sisters — visit often, but her father has yet to. Very early in life, Pragya learnt to rely on herself. She and her brother were sent to a boarding school in Darjeeling. Pragya fondly remembers her Darjeeling days.

“I liked studying there.” But then quite suddenly, her father started spending more time away from home, the household income was affected, and she and her brother were pulled out of boarding school and admitted to regular schools in Patna.

Pragya and her mother together managed the household, and her dad sent what he could. Being the eldest, she looked after her siblings and did household work. And when her father would come to visit them, she wouldn’t be too excited. “He would come to go back.”

When her classmates came with their fathers to school, she didn’t miss her father. “Patna isn’t safe for women, but I don’t depend on male company to accompany me. I have learnt to manage on my own.” Because of this outlook, she feels she’s different from the others.

Until Class 9, Pragya was an average student. “I had no ambitions. Perhaps it was because of the way things were at home.” But one day, her uncle, who was a code developer, came over and gave her an algorithm code to crack. “It took me time, but I did. It was fascinating!” And before she realised it, she became absorbed in math.

“When I started doing well in studies, I began to dream of a future. I wanted to achieve something.” Her uncle said that IIT would change her life, and after that all that mattered was getting into IIT. She scored 97 per cent in math in Class 10.

In her first attempt at IIT-JEE, after her Class 12, Pragya got through Roorkee University where she got architecture. But she didn’t enjoy the subject and quit the programme. So when she came across an article on Super 30, she was willing to risk a year. “The only challenge was to get into Super 30, because once you are in it, half the battle is won as Super 30′s success rate was excellent.”

Studying there along with sharp brains was a challenge. She would come home with doubts of getting through IIT, but her brother would encourage her. “He believed in me and this revived my spirit. Of course, my mother has always supported me.” When Pragya looks back she says those were tough times.

She would wake up at 5 every morning, revise what she had studied the night before, and then help her mother in the kitchen. She would leave for college by 9.30 am and be back by 4 pm, buy vegetables on the way home, help her mother again, go through her brother’s and sister’s copy books, and then get back to studies. “I have never had time for myself.” Until now her mother hasn’t brought up the issue of marriage. “That’s not a priority for my mother or me. I have to first fulfil my dreams.’

Sunset at Chowpatty
When the results came out in 2006, for the first time she had a real sense of achievement. “I made my mother proud whom I have never seen resting. She’s always doing something or the other.” So when the time came to leave home, Pragya worried about her mother’s health. “She only looks after us, but not herself. You know how mothers are.”

IIT Mumbai was Pragya’s second choice and Guwahati first as both the IITs have a good faculty for both biotechnology and chemistry. “I just wanted do a course where I could study both chemistry and biology, I like the subjects very much. I want to be a researcher.”

On the first day in IIT Mumbai, she was nervous, but the atmosphere was such that “I settled in very quickly”. Pragya’s been awarded the Merit-cum-Means Scholarship, so her semester fee, which is Rs 25,000 (for four months), is now Rs 8,000. And she says she manages her monthly expenses in just about Rs 2,000.

She has a few close friends in college, but does not like to attach herself to a particular group. “I prefer to be with everybody than take sides.” And when she gets the time, she heads to Chowpatty or Marine Drive, sits by the sea to watch the sunset. “I am happy with my solitude.”

Original Source: Rediff.com

From Potatoes Fields to IIT

In his 18 long years of a hand-to-mouth existence, Suresh Ram hasn’t had the time to grieve his mother’s death or feel angry that he’s poor. Every day was a struggle, for months his family lived on bhuja (flattened rice), but somehow they scraped through to the next day. Now, Suresh Ram is a third year civil engineering student at IIT Delhi.

Even now he doesn’t have the time to reflect on his difficult past. “We are overloaded with work here and there’s never enough time.”

Suresh comes from a village called Adhkhani, in district Sitamarhi, close to the Nepal border. His father, for most part of his life has tilled land as a labourer in the village. But had it not been for his father’s determination, Suresh’s life’s course may not have altered greatly.

Options for primary education were limited; there was only one school in the village, a government school. But his father after many requests to the principal, was able to get Suresh admitted to the school. “My father didn’t want me or my brother to live a farmer’s life. It was a hard and ungrateful life.”

The school was small and the teachers weren’t that good, says Suresh. Since the school was in such a remote area, teachers came on short tenures and with little passion to teach. Except for one: the math teacher. It was because of him that Suresh’s interest in math began to develop.

Before that he wasn’t particularly interested in studies although he studied every evening, after helping his father in the potato fields. There was no electricity in his mud house and he studied in the lantern light. Even today, there’s no electricity in his house; again one of those villages of the country that have been left out to remain in the dark.

Suresh knows farm work all too well. “For years, I have given my father a hand in the paddy and wheat fields, in picking potatoes; tilling land, sowing seeds, watering the fields, and in the harvest season carting sacks full of potatoes to our small kitchen.” Suresh and his family lived off the farm; nothing was bought. Even clothes weren’t bought; all he had was his school uniform which he wore to school and at home.

But there was a “burning desire” to do something. At the time, his math teacher started taking special interest in Suresh, as he could solve complex mathematical problems. “It was because of him that I discovered I was good in mathematics.”

And so his teacher called him over to his residence for extra studies. “When he said that I was good, that’s when I started believing that I was a  good student.”

One day, a classmate’s brother came over to Suresh’s school. “He was studying in IIT Kanpur, and he told us that we must study hard and prepare for IIT. He said, IIT main zindagi badal jaygee (IIT will change your life).”

So, all he did was study day and night. “For the other students in the village, like the children of rich landlords, they still had options. For me it was almost a matter of life or death.” His Class 12 results weren’t too encouraging, and with his initial preparation he couldn’t crack the IIT-JEE exam. “I was shaken up. All along I had only thought of getting into IIT. That’s what I had been preparing for, been thinking of; I had no other future plans.”

Suresh’s father gave him Rs 4,000 and asked him to go to Patna to find a good coaching centre and prepare for IIT all over again. He went to Patna, stayed there for two weeks, spent all the money and came back to the village empty-handed. “I couldn’t find any centre where I could study in that little amount of money.”

When the villagers got to know of his failure, they laughed at him. Especially, the rich villagers taunted: “But you were confident of getting into IIT, eh?”

Then a friend from Patna told him of Anand Kumar’s Super 30. Suresh’s elder brother encouraged him to give it another shot, and so he went back to Patna. “When I met Mr Kumar, I knew I had come to the right place and once again found the strength to dream of IIT.” There, along with the others, Suresh studied for 10 hours every day. “All we did was study.” Everything was provided for: food, a place to stay.

It was Kumar who saw his result. Suresh’s rank was 77 in the scheduled caste category. “Now I had a reason to go back to my village and shut the mouths of those who mocked my failure. But I laughed when some villagers came up to me and asked me why I was going to Delhi, when ITI was here, in the district?”

Not many had heard of IIT in his village, and they often confused it with the Industrial Training Institute (ITI).

Disappointments at IIT
With the blessings of his father, Suresh came to Delhi. It’s been three years now, but not once has he felt out of place in a big city, or in the prestigious institute where students of different backgrounds come from all parts of the country.

“Nobody at IIT is valued for their money; education makes us all equals.”

But Suresh appears to be a little disillusioned. “IIT is an institute that seems like a magical place from the outside, but the story is different when you are behind its great walls.”

He says that the teachers are least interested in the students. “Their priorities are different.” Writing research papers  close to performance-review time often leaves the students unattended. “You have to fend for yourself. There’s no support.” As campus placements approach, he worries about his communication and English skills. “I am aware that they are weak, but we aren’t encouraged to do better.” So Suresh is teaching himself English now.

But there’s no doubt that IIT attracts the best companies in the country, says Suresh. More than the corporate  sector, it is the civil services that allures Suresh. Being a civil servant, he says, will give him both the power and the opportunity to change things. “I want to make life better for my people in the village who still light the lantern at night.”

But one thing that IIT has taught him will stay with him forever. “IIT has taught me how to fight; it has taught me how to survive. The work pressure is so much but we somehow finish on time. You learn to manage time.” But despite a punishing routine, Suresh finds the time to takes tuitions. “I send home some money.” And when he wants to take a break from it all, he goes to the nearby Priya Cinema Complex to watch Shah Rukh Khan. “I like his films. They are about love and romance.”

Original Source: Rediff.com