R Sathish dropped out of school in Class V to help his father run their confectionary business. Today, he is the Additional Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance. He does not have a record centum in Class X or an outstanding Class XII result to boast of. Instead, at every point in his journey to the top, there were disappointments.
A student of the once co-ed NKC GGHS School in the fishing village of Kurusukuppam, Sathish recently recalled his success story at a function organised by the school to felicitate him.
Sathish’s father, who studied up to Class V, prioritised their business over his son’s studies and by the time the dropout realised it was time to return to Class V, he was already 17 years old. Though he appeared for the ESLC (Eighth School Leaving Certificate) at Cuddalore in 1985, he failed to clear his English paper. After a second attempt, he passed the exam.
Sathish went on to take his SSLC exams, but managed to score only 247 marks. This posed a big problem for him as he wanted to study physics. He was forced to opt for the fourth group that offered economics and political science in the NKC school. On completing post-graduation in Economics from the Kanchi Mamunivar Post Graduate Centre, he appeared for the civil services exams but failed to qualify for the interview.
Sathish did not give up. He moved to Chennai and after a lot of hard work and determination, got selected for the Indian Economic Service (IES) in 1996.
Today, he is married to his IES batch mate Promodita and has three children. “He is a role model to inspire young students of the government school,” says MLA K Lakshminarayanan. “More Sathishes should come from the school,” he hopes.
Sathish has still not given up on his studies. He is now pursuing PhD on the subject ‘Exchange rate and impact on trade’. His ties with Puducherry remain unaffected by the fact that he has no relatives or family here anymore.