Saturday, 24 May 2008

A few days ago, I read an article about a poor Kolhapur Dalit boy Sridhar Kamble, who, owing to his single minded dedication to astronomy, had landed a NASA scholarship. This news piece and the one in TOI were both really heartening to read; they made me happy with the thought that true scholarship paid off. This was rural India making a statement. The voice and will of the oppressed triumphs. The article mentioned the numerous hardships the boy's poor farmer father had to endure to make his son study. In spite of selling more than half of his land, the boy was short of meeting his travel expenses and I was satisfied to read that the state had intervened with a scholarship to fund his expenses.

But the words jumping the gun could not have been more ominous. The first CNN-IBN article that hit my face this morning was about the entire business of Sridhar going to NASA being a fake and a case of deceit and forgery. He probably did have a genuine interest in astronomy, but he had faked documents starting from his 10th marks to his correspondence with NASA, in order to get funds from the government. Unfortunately, this momentary lapse of the boy (who is all of seventeen and cannot be guilty of dreaming high) is going to extract a heavy price on his future career and education.

2 comments:

sam said...

A boy who thinks it is ok to be successful by cheating is misguided and only a serious lesson will teach not only him but others who try to go the munna bhai route.

Aytidaa Madras said...

Agree with dorjey. Shocking read - had no idea. Being in France has kept me hooked to BBC rather than TOI.