Malda/Kolkata/Howrah: Son of a retired cotton mill labourer, Joy Mandal couldn’t afford to have any private tuition and had to depend on his school teachers to study. But that didn’t stop him from scoring 498 out of 500 in the Higher Secondary examinations this year. This student of Raiganj Coronation High School has come second in the exam. He had ranked ninth in the Madhyamik two years ago.
Joy, whose family lives in a thatched hut, used to study mostly during the day time since he couldn’t afford to use electricity. “My father has to sustain our family of four on a meagre pension and he couldn’t afford to give me private tutors. I know I have problems, but these are my advantages too. After I did well in Madhayamik, the entire school stood beside me and extended all the help I needed. No words are enough to thank them,” Joy said.
Though he hopes to become a doctor, Joy doesn’t know how to manage that. “Leaders from different political parties came and promised to help him, but I don’t know whether my son’s dream will be compromised for want of money,” said Joy’s father Jyotirmoy Mandal.
Sk Arsad Ali, who scored 490 out of 500 in his HS, had to take up the burden of his family after his father lost his job during the lockdown. For him, getting the result was part of just another day of fighting with hunger and uncertainty. Arsad — the only bread earner of the family of 10 — has now planned to use his high score to bring students to give tuition to so that he can improve on the Rs 1,500 that he earns at present.
A student of Bantra Madhusudan Pal Chowdhury School, Howrah, Arsad could never imagine taking private tuition. “We are poor and cannot dream big,” he said when asked what would he like to do next. “I cannot think of even taking up an honours course in college unless I get a scholarship. I don’t know what will happen next,” said the resident of a slum in Belilious Road, Howrah.
“He is an example of that old adage — where there’s a will there’s a way,” said school principal Tanmoy Chakraborty.
When her father Tilu Das died of a sudden heart attack in November 2016, Paromita’s world came crashing down. A loose rice seller in the Bosepukur market, Tilu was the only earner of the family of four — a wife and two daughters. His elder daughter had to sacrifice her education when she started helping her widowed mother at their stall. Four years of struggle paid off on Friday when Paromita — the younger of the two sisters and a student of Silver Point School in Kasba — managed to top in the humanities stream in her school with 88.2% marks.
Her elder sister Priyanka offered to sit in the stall because she wanted Paromita to continue her studies. “I owe my success to my elder sister’s sacrifice,” Paromita said. Speaking of taking private lessons, the youngster, who also helps out at the stall at times, said, “It is not that I did not want tuition. We just couldn’t afford it.”
Source: Times of India
