Despite all the hue and cry in favour of “race for careers” we find around us today, there’s hardly much motivational thought delivered to students to drive them to hard work in higher studies. Such an arrangement was, however, recently made at the headquarters of Student Islamic Organisation (SIO) in the Capital on February 8.
SIO together in collaboration with ‘Human Chain’ arranged an esteem-setting lecture by noted academic activist Anand Kumar. Mr. Kumar is renowned world over for his unique contribution to mathematical studies and providing near-free super-quality coaching for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance examinations; driven especially for extremely poor but honest and hard-working students.
Mr. Kumar’s life, marked with keen interest for mathematics in his childhood and quest for wisdom, can hardly ever be described in one setting or in a documentary, especially after the decade long academic welfare activities he has dedicatedly been committed to with his entire family (including his IITian wife, who left her job to join his ‘movement’ for respect and higher education). After the sad demise of his father, he had two options available to him: one, to earn livelihood by joining a job position vacated by his father’s death; and the other, to continue his craze for mathematics. He chose the latter.
But the path so voluntarily taken up by him was not a cake-walk. There was no chief breadwinner in his family, if he were to only look after his studies. It was his mother then who had to turn into, both a matriarch as well as a provider for the family. She seated herself to make Papad and he, with his brother, took up their selling (which he did after his tuition hours during the day). At a moment in time, he came in contact with Mr. Shahabuddin, a mathematics teacher who would teach mathematics in Patna University. He thus became a guru to Mr. Kumar and guided Mr. Kumar rightly in mathematics. Subsequently, some of his research papers got published in the European and American magazines too, and he was all over the press! He even got an admission offer from the University of Cambridge, but he could still not arrange for even the initial financial requirements.
That would have been a crossroad for a weaker heart to lose hope. But Mr. Kumar, thankfully, was not one of them. With his undivided belief in keeping no grudges, he vowed not to let his worthy efforts so far die down. And he was soon up with his plans for sincere commitment to the academic promotion of poor students, something that distinguishes him today in a million or more tutors.
His message, full of patience, respect for all faiths, honesty in deeds and unity of people was all laid bare today in the hall full of significant gathering of students, old and middle-aged parents and the people who, from far and wide, had gathered ‘on-their-toes’ just to hear him. For his undivided love of the poor and hardworking – there was no less of love and appreciation that he received from the gathering; though the untimely questions that tensed the emotions owing to the paucity of time were typically a sort of bog-down. In a much appealing way no different from that of a sage, he motivated each and every student to think of his/ her society and return better yields to the same. “Every effort needs time to prosper and requires continuous courage, so do not be tired and give up,” he said. He urged the students to make positive goals and commit to them.
Mr. Kumar also shared with his gathering many inspirational stories of numerous poor students who cleared IIT/JEE entrance examinations under his teaching and are presently enjoying better job positions in well-known Multi-National Companies. One such story was of Santosh who hailed from a hand-to-mouth family but with his excellence in studies is now serving as a professor in a European country. After qualifying for the IIT, Santosh was a hot cake for media and his success story was published in American journals as well. Nonetheless, Mr. Anand surprised many when he said he does not accept any donation to run his coaching centre, though at least someone in the audience might have easily guessed this sacrifice on his part, responsible in part for his excellence in life.
‘Super-30’ was established in 2002 and enrols only 30 students a year. Since then it has coached a total of 330 students, 281 of whom have cleared IIT entrance examinations. Amazingly, at least three times in the past years, all the 30 of his students of a batch were able to secure a seat each in the prestigious IITs!