 "Harendra Singh (centre) with his family")
Even though neighbours know each other well in Hoshiyarpur, a village in Noida, Harendra Singh has a distinction in that aspect. While most village folks may not know him by his name, but they do know the 13-year-old to whom Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav gave Rs 5 lakh.
It began with a simple Facebook post, in which a passerby uploaded a photograph of Harendra at the Noida City Centre Metro Station, sitting with a weighing machine. What made this regular scene unique was the fact that the boy was using that time to also complete his homework. The picture seems to have become a symbol of the India shining dream, where education is the key to a better life.
In Harendra's case, that may well be true.
It is hard to locate where Harendra lives in Hoshiyarpur, despite the fact that almost everyone seems to have read his story in the papers. A grocer tells me that the boy and his family live as tenants and often move from one house to another within the village. Himanshu Singh, a former classmate of Harendra, accompanies me while I look for his current house. When I mention Harendra's name, Himanshu grins and asks me if I'm looking for "Gandhi". I ask him if they call him that because he's studious and Himanshu says, "No, it's because he wears glasses."
Every home we stop to ask for directions seems to emanate a thinly-veiled sense of resentment. A tailor in the area says that if he knew that just studying could improve one's lot, he'd have continued to go to school and wouldn't have given up school to support his family.
When I finally locate his house, I am told by his neighbours that he is at the tuition centre. His mother, Kiran Singh, reluctantly agrees to meet me. Dressed in a simple salwar kameez, Kiran says she has no inkling of "all that has been happening". She doesn't know where he goes for tuitions or if he has a mobile phone where he can be contacted.
"Harendra is a master of his own time and life. He has done all this for himself on his own steam," she says, biting back the bitterness. Things become clearer when I ask her about her other children. "My eldest son is an unemployed troublemaker. We've kicked him out of the house," she says.
Later that evening, Harendra's father, Ram Gopal Singh, calls me on the number I left behind for him. A differently-abled man, he lost his job in May this year when the company where he worked made budget cuts.
That was when Harendra took the weighing scale that the father had bought for himself and parked himself at the metro station. The boy, according to Ram Gopal, would sometimes bring as much as Rs 100 a day. He also adds that as a child, Harendra was not as focused on his studies. "It was only a couple of years ago when he realised that if he worked hard, he could do well."
It looks as if the father has already made plans about how he will spend the money, though he shrouds it in the "best interests of his son". "We want the child to study so he can grow up to take care of us. But even if he doesn't, we want the best for him," he says. Harendra wants to join the army as an officer, according to his father. In a rare show of a protective instinct, he refuses to let me speak to his son. "He is only a child."
