Twist of fate

Updated on: Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Chowdhurys of Mukundapur have never felt this happy in a long while. They had started believing that the misfortune that had hit them in 1997 would never end and they would forever live a life of penury. But there’s light at the end of every tunnel, to use the old adage, and finally the family is smiling again.

The elder boy of the family has landed a plum job in a multinational company. If you are wondering what’s the big deal about that, you need to know that the boy’s father, Sunil Chowdhury, is a simple taxi driver and the boy has bagged a job with Volvo Eicher.

Life was not always so difficult for the family. In fact, the Chowdhurys were quite affluent till misfortune struck. Sunil owned a leather business near Park Circus. He operated out of a rented place. When the government shifted tanneries to Bantala, Chowdhury had to wind up his factory and his partner cheated him of the entire capital and vanished from the city. Sunil had to sell off his house, his wife’s ornaments and withdraw his entire bank balance to pay off his debts.

At that time, Sunil’s older son Rajiv Ranjan studied in Class VII at Grace Ling Liang School while younger son Vinit Ranjan was in Class II. “Suddenly, our happy and secure world came crashing down. Even paying my sons’ tuition fees was difficult. I desperately reached out to friends for help. It was at their advice that I learnt driving and then started driving someone’s taxi. But I realised that the income would not help me meet even a quarter of my family’s expenses,” Sunil said.

So his friends lent him some money and he bought an old taxi. “I was determined to prevent my children from dropping out of school. I would drive for 18 hours a day to meet our expenses,” Sunil said.

Rajiv worked equally hard and scored 92% marks in ICSE and 90% in ISC to become one of the best students of his school. It was his dream to join the air force. With this in mind, he took the entrance test to the National Defence Academy (NDA) and qualified for an interview.

“But my parents were not willing to let me go. So, I took the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) and luckily got myself a berth in automobile engineering at the MCKV Engineering College in Howrah,” says Rajiv.

It was a difficult choice for the family as the four-year course would cost nearly Rs
200,000 in tuition fees. “We knew it was difficult for a taxi driver to arrange that kind of money. We also knew that Rajiv’s father had borrowed heavily from friends to ensure that his son studied engineering. We had told him that we would waive Rajiv’s semester fees whenever required and eventually did that,” said MCKV vice-principal Tirthankar Dutta.

“Last year, when the state government scrapped 15-year-old taxis for polluting the city, Sunil was forced to forego his old taxi. This again unsettled the already poverty-stricken family. At that time, we took charge of the boy completely. He has consistently performed brilliantly and has topped the institute with an enviable 9 points, meaning a 90-plus score,” Dutta added.

During the recent campus placements, Rajiv was picked up by Volvo Eicher with two other boys. He will work in the company’s Pithampur plant in Indore and draw an impressive Rs 7 lakh annually, which is the highest any boy has been offered on campus this time. “Call it providence or what you will. For me, a taxi driver’s son, getting a job at Volvo is like fate turning full circle,” Rajiv said.

Twist of fate

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