COIMBATORE: Can a voyage to the rough seas change your destiny? A Mohankumar, then a research student at Annamalai University, may nod in the positive. A few years ago, he was sailing with the fishermen of Parangipettai village, to collect saltwater from the middle of the sea that would have helped his study on microorganisms.
All of a sudden, an extratropical cyclone threw some of the men, including Mohankumar, into the choppy waters. “When I was drowning, those in the boat tossed the fishing net worth `one lakh without a second thought to save me. This was a crucial moment in my life,” he reminisces. The moment that taught him to devote his life to help others!
Now working as an assistant professor in the zoology department at the Chikkanna Government Arts College in Tiruppur, the same varsity he studied in, Mohankumar was appointed as Unit-2 officer of the National Service Scheme (NSS) in 2016 by former college principal Shanmugasundaram. Mohankumar’s experience of taking part in NSS activities while in schools helped him bring about changes and national achievements for the college over the last six years. “Poverty was a regular sight in my childhood. Struggling to get one square meal a day is also one of the reasons I decided to help those who are in a similar condition,” he recalls.
In two years, Mohankumar said the NSS unit was strengthened and a student took part in the Republic Day parade in New Delhi in 2018 for the very first time since the college’s inception. The same year, he was recognised as a State-level Republic Day coordinator. “It felt like a big victory. Among 40 lakh NSS volunteers from across the country, a volunteer from our college was selected. I led a nine-member team representing Tamil Nadu at the 2019 national integration camp held in Kerala,” he says.
The NSS unit of Chikkanna college has held as many as 1,254 social programmes in the last six years, such as the establishment of five gardens in the names of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Swami Vivekananda and freedom fighter Tiruppur Kumaran among others. The NGO also looks after 2,200 plants, which they planted.
“Further, we created a pond in the name of NSS to save the rainwater. Thanks to this, now the campus is in a green bloom. Noting the immense work done by Mohankumar, the Union government appointed him as the nodal officer in Tiruppur to manage Covid-19 pandemic.
During the second wave, assisting the corporation’s tele-counselling centre at Boyampalayam, 40 volunteers from the NGO worked for 40 days in different shifts. They provided those in quarantine with medical information, testing details and passed on their concerns to the authorities. Another set of delegates worked in 31 mega vaccination camps within corporation limits, managing the crowd in markets. “Perhaps what will remain with me till the end of my life is that we saved as many as 85 persons during the second wave,” he adds.