Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Land of Opportunity

A village boy comes from a district which is 6 hours from Kolkata towards North. His father had a small business of selling mosquito net, but also a dream of making the youngest son an engineer.

Village school education was free but could not help the boy securing good enough a rank for Govt. Engineering colleges. An education loan helped to get an admission in a private engineering college in the neighbouring district for which a village school teacher stood guarantor.

There was a campus job offer of Rs. 12000 p.m. but while joining the boy found the company to be a fake one. Off-campus attempt to get a job asked for a Rs. 25000 deposit to a company. The job was found to be one where he had to climb tall cell phone towers in hills without safety gear. Mother asked him to leave the job and come back home.

Some neighbours and members of larger family members laughed at this fate of the engineer. He started helping father in the mosquito net business. Some gave suggestion to work as labour and learn masonry.
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The phone call came yesterday evening when I was returning from Kolkata after an official work. There were best presentation award in conference, publication in very good journal before (more in the pipeline). Now comes a 'signal processing' work related job offer from campus placement in one of the most reputed company of the world. This is an international brand that offers only premium products which are aspiration of who's who.

Wish the father was there today to see what his engineer son is up to. During his project and M.S. work here, the son was devastated to hear but then did his best to take the father to the best place in the country offering cancer treatment.
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It is time for search engines to redefine "Land of opportunity"! The boy once shared that every evening after returning to hostel from lab. he takes time out to talk to himself - to analyze the problems in hand and find ways to overcome them. And, he finds this poster inspiring!
The successful run of biopics at Bollywood in recent times may evoke interest in this script!!!

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