RAMANATHAPURAM: While working a lucrative job in North Carolina three years ago, B Vignesh Kumar had an epiphany that prompted him to return to his village in Ramanathapuram. Giving back to his roots was more important than his job in the US, he felt. The 35-year-old then adopted the school in his hometown, Kundathur village in Nainarkoil block.
It was where his father and elder brother studied. Having completed a graduate degree in microbiology, and PhD in biotechnology at Alagappa University, Vignesh joined Duke University Medical Centre as a postdoctoral associate in 2015. Two years later, he quit his job to help his village. “One night around 2 am in 2017, while working at the university laboratory, I asked myself, ‘What am I doing?’ My research would only add to the junk of countless academic journals, and the maximum impact it could create would be to be cited by another researcher.
During my two years in the US, the only days I was content were when I sent my salary to my parents,” he recounts. Joining hands with his wife Bhavna Krishnan, Vignesh, who now works at the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (Chennai), adopted the Kundathur Panchayat Union Primary School last year through the KRB Educational and Social Welfare Trust. The couple started the trust in the name of Vignesh’s father KR Balasubramanian, a retired forest ranger.
Until recently, the school, with a 720 sq ft classroom, wore a gloomy look. Its leaking clay-tiled roof, broken cement floor and old walls were the same as they were decades ago. The school had 20 students last year, and only 16 this year. In November 2020, Vignesh provided carrom boards and sufficient wooden benches and desks for 24 students. Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, when students were away, he and a Madurai-based group of artists renovated the school building and painted the walls in September.
“The school is now ready. We are now only waiting for the children to return, and to see their smiles,” he said. Vignesh also plans to set up smart classrooms, and is contemplating setting up an internet facility on wheels that would benefit the entire village, which has 50-70 families. Besides this, he hopes to train the villagers to work in cottage industries, so they would have an alternative livelihood when drought hits the rain-fed land.
“The plan is to turn Kundathur into a model village, motivate at least 10 others to adopt these strategies in 10 different villages, and turn this into a mass movement. Our journey has just begun,” he explained.
Strongly refusing third-party funds, Vignesh said the aim is to inspire many people to step forward.
Expressing concern over youth migrating from villages he said, “It can be prevented only through direct and long-term engagement in such activities to uplift one’s own village.”