From hunger to success

From hunger to success

Herald Review March, 30, 2014   

Hunger pangs drove his desire to succeed. What Sarathbabu Elumalai didn’t have in terms of financial resources, he made up for with his dedication and perseverance to excel academically. LISA ANN MONTEIRO delves into his inspiring rags to riches story

Sarathbabu Elumalai has always found inspiration in his mother. After her husband left the house, Deepa Ramani found herself with five children to fend for. Juggling three jobs, she sold idlis in the mornings, worked for the mid- day meal scheme at a school during the day and taught at the adult education programme of the government, earning a meager amount each day. She tried her best to make sure her family didn’t go hungry. The sacrifices she made for her children left a deep impression on Sarath when he was a young boy. The one sight that moved him was that of his mother drinking water to overcome her hunger. He was determined not to let her efforts go in vain. He was going to make her proud and put a roof over her head one day.

Sarath decided that for this to happen, he would have to focus wholeheartedly on his studies in which he invariably topped his class. Before school hours, he would help his mother by selling idlis to other families in the slum area of Madipakkam in Chennai where they lived. With no electricity, he used the nearby street light to study at night.

After the tenth standard he worked on book binding to help pay the fees for the eleventh and twelfth level. When it came to the crucial twelfth standard, his not possessing an alarm clock led him to an ingenious way of waking up to study. He refused the mat and bedsheet and chose to sleep shirtless on the bare floor. When temperatures dropped at midnight, the floor would become unbearably cold, compelling him to wake up and take to his books till 7.30 am. Such was his determination.

“ The only way I could prove myself was through my studies. I couldn’t get recognition in any other way. I couldn’t show off my uniform as it was always torn. I couldn’t take fresh food to class as it was always the previous day’s food. I would open my tiffin box and when I found that the food was spoilt, I would tell myself that I wasn’t hungry that day. The only way I could get recognition was by topping the class. I felt that if I didn’t do that, I would be worthless.

For food and a tidy uniform I depended on my mother but to get good marks I realized that I didn’t have to depend on anyone, not even my teacher, but my textbooks.” He knew little about the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Goa. His friend told him he could surely get in considering his high grades and, more importantly, he would be assured of a job after the course. To pay the high fees, his sister pawned her jewellery and his mother found him a government scholarship. This covered only his tuition fees and to cope with the hostel and food expenses he borrowed money at high rates of interest.

It was the first time that he had travelled so far from home. He missed his mother’s emotional support.

Surrounded by upper and upper middle class students who spoke in English about John Grisham and Angelina Jolie, he was lost at first but soon made friends.

He took up a job with Polaris Software Labs after his chemical engineering degree and was able to clear off his loans. He heard about the IIMs being the best management institutes in the country and decided he was going to study there. He answered CAT, scoring a whopping 98.45 per cent in the third attempt and got calls from all six IIMs. It was his moment of elation. He opted for IIM Ahmedabad where he says he put in around 20 hours of study each day.

His priorities however were different from the other management students.

He says, “ With about 30 per cent of the population below the poverty line in India, I thought to myself, these people are in the same situation as my mother. They too have experienced hunger. What’s the use of my education if it’s only going to help one person? It would be selfish of me. My mother’s sacrifice shouldn’t help only me, it should help more people.” So he turned down lucrative offers to join MNCs where the salary offered to him was between Rs 8 lakh and Rs 16 lakh. Instead, he told his mother he wanted to start his own food catering enterprise through which he could could employ as many people as possible. She gave him her blessings and there was no looking back since then. Sarath today is the CEO of Food King which has five branches in the country. It offers employment to a number of illiterate and semiliterate people.

He is also working for a hunger free India through his Hunger Free India Foundation which has fixed October 10th as a hunger free day in the country. Under this initiative he is also working on a more recent project to build 100 toilets for poor government schools in his State.

Sarath has also nurtured political ambitions. In 2009 and 2011 he contested the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections as an independent candidate where he garnered five per cent of the votes, the next largest number after the two big political parties in the State-- the AIADMK and the DMK. He chose to skip the 2014 election, dedicating himself instead to doing more ground work for the elections to follow.

In 2012, Sarath was one of three young entrepreneurs invited from across the world for the World Bank’s Global Youth Conference in Washington DC where he was honoured for his entrepreneurship and leadership skills. Ask him whether it was his intelligence or his determination that contributed to his success and he says it is neither of the two. The secret of his success, he says, is his mother’s sacrifice. “ It is her sacrifice that gave me a platform to explore my intelligence and put in all those hours of hard work. We didn’t have enough to eat. I was a scrawny little kid. It is only after my engineering degree when I began working was I able to provide a better life for her.” His has already fulfilled one of his dreams – of providing a roof over his mother’s head. He has even bought her a car. His other dream is to become an Education Minister to ensure good quality education in government schools in the country. Review Bureau