Adventures of a Genius Boy from 3rd world country

Chennai, 1958
The Harvard University's invitation letter was placed on University Of Madras's Dean's room table, where dean Senthinathan and Krishnan sitting facing each other. Dean started "See Krishnan, I submitted your thesis paper to Harvard university because i thought your research well deserved to be continue, it is not a easy one to experimentally prove Bose-Einstein condensate theory. You have done a marvelous job here. I want you to continue the experiment at Harvard". Dean looked at Krishnan's face, he noticed some hesitant from his face. Dean continued "You are only 4th person from our university to pursue research in Harvard with full scholarship. Don't waste this golden opportunity".

Krishnan was a genius guy, he was brought up in Srirangam, which is about 300 KM south from Madras. Until his age 10, he was home schooled, after 10 he got admitted to direct 9th grade as he was a bright and super intelligent boy. After completing his Bachelor degree in Physics, he went to Madras to pursue his masters and Ph.D. He took very complex "how to experiment Bose-Einstein condensate theory" for his research. Now his thesis was liked by Harvard so they sent the invitation for him to continue the research and experiments. Krishnan took some time to think about it, and finally he accepted the offer. The voyage to U.S.A was tough at those times. First Krishnan had to travel Madras to Calcutta by train and Calcutta to London by ship and finally trans Atlantic from London to New York. Krishnan started his journey to Calcutta.

Srirangam,1958
The letter came as thunder to Nammalwar (Nam-mal-War) family, they came to know about Krishnan's U.S.A travel only by his final letter from Madras, which he posted just before starting to Calcutta. Krishnan did not inform his family about his U.S.A travel because he knew that getting consensus from them was really cumbersome. Those days who are bound to U.S.A from India, especially from Southern States was considered as death. Because India was a 3rd world country, no telephone, no communication and letters were took 6 months to reach those places. Basically once they left country, there will not be any short of communications.

Nammalwar shocked and sat on floor as he holding the letter and screamed "Meenal, we lost our son...oh my god what can i do now?". Meenal joined with him and other kids also joined. Their cry rattled the street, everyone from street were in front of Naammalwar's home. The major worrisome of Nammalwar was about the marriage between Krishnan and his Sister's daughter Vasantha. His plan was to make Krishnan a professor at local college and stay with in his reach, he want to see his grand children and so on. But man proposed god deposed.

Vasantha's mom and dad also joined with Nammalwar to console the family with many other relatives and friends.Parthasarathi a close friend of Nammalwar started "Alwar, be strong, the 3rd street Gopal's son also went to foreign country, see how they are managing". Vasantha quickly interrupted "Uncle, he went to Bombay which is part of India". Vasantha internally happy with latest developments, because she was not ready for marriage, her age was only 16 and she want to study more like Krishnan. Moreover she sees Krishnan as role model not husband. Vasantha's mom yelled at her "Vasantha. please go inside, don't interrupt grown man's discussions". Nammalwar said "Partha, I'm much worried about Vasantha, who is going to marry her, we started telling about Vasantha for Krishnan since her birth". The state of Krishnan's home was not good, everyone offered some opinions and their experiences with same situation at distant relatives or close friend's sons.

En route to London,1958
Krishnan took his second class cabin from Calcutta, after initial sea sick and motion sickness, the voyage was smooth. The ship was filled with Doctors, Engineers, mass migrates and some research fellow like Krishnan. All were en route to U.S.A or various European countries after reaching London. Their major mistake was they were born as super intelligent in a 3rd world country hence they have to travel far away places to fulfill their dreams or to just work in their mastered field.

They kill their time by exchanging books between them, each one become good friends and shared about their experiences. One morning, Krishnan started feeling pain and became very tried. His temperature went high, as per ship policy they have to quarantine high fever persons from general passengers if he/she from 3rd world country since malaria fear. Since Krishnan's fever didn't come down in a specified time, hence the ship guards rushed to his cabin. "Sir, we afraid that we have to quarantine since your temperature is high". Krishnan replied "can i ask a n board doctor to check my vital signs before we proceed". The same guard said "No sir, here we don't have any doctors or lab facility, since you are from 3rd world country we have to do this procedure". Krishnan got angry and shouted "what is going on here? are we human or what? i need a doctor and lab test to confirm my malaria? then only i would go to quarantine room...". The guards left the place since co-passengers also agreed with Krishnan. After some time, more guards showed up with some one who appeared higher official, the official said "Mister, this is our ship policy, you have to co-operate with us, otherwise we have to arrest you". This time Krishnan had no other way but go to a separate room.

The room was 8X8 small cabin, food and all other necessities would be provided on time, but Krishnan should not come out of the room until it reaches London. There a doctor would come to the ship and test him, after doctor gives his clearance certificate, Krishnan can come out of ship. The voyage still had 1 month to go, even though Krishnan's fever had gone and he was completely normal, he had to stay at the small room due to the 100 years old policy. Those olden 19th century times doctors were rare, since they did not employ one at ship, but what about now at this 1958, Krishnan started thinking about all those things.

Harvard, 1960
Krishnan completed his thesis with his fellow scientist Tracy, they decided to marry to start their family life. Krishnan got a job at GE but he refused it since he want to stay with educational. He took a professor job at University of Texas. Tracy happily backed him, they both started working at University of Texas. In the mean time, Krishnan exchanged 3 letters with his family back in India. Nammalwar's last letter was a bitter one since he decided to marry an American. Nammalwar wrote that they forgot a son they had in this life. Krishnan had no other choice to take it lightly, but he thought they would be fine after some time.

Houston, 1973
Now Krishnan had 2 kids, one boy and girl. He was very much settled in U.S.A. He became part of many million immigrates who represented the great nation of India. This doctors, engineers and scientists were main reason for demolishing the negative stereotypes of India as well as many other 3rd world countries. Krishnan didn't go to India since he left in 1958. Because he didn't want to go through the ship voyage, moreover he did not want to take 1 year vacation, which includes 6 months of travel. But Tracy insisted him to made a trip to India, because now there was a flight service started from London to Bombay, which was well affordable. After nearly 13 years, Krishnan wrote a letter to his father.


Srirangam,1973

Nammalwar received the letter with detailed travel plan from Krishnan, even though he was angry with him, he always remembered him time to time. After some point of time, Nammalwar realized that we have to go towards opportunities, the opportunities will not come towards to you. Nammalwar family was jubilant with Krishnan's home coming after nearly 15 years. They started all the planning and ordered new cloths, repaint home. But they realized that their daughter in law was an American, so how to readjust for her. So they decided to change home, installed western toilets and many more things.

The day came for Krishnan's plane landing at Madras, all were expecting, how Krishnan must have forgotten Tamil and Indian culture and his wife might not like them. But Krishnan and Tracy landed wearing traditional dhoti & saree and Krishnan opens his mouth with pure Tamil "Appa(father), Amma(mother)".

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