Geetanjali Krishna: Now even Brillin dreams of IT

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

It's three o'clock in the afternoon in Neerampattinam, a little fishing village near Pondicherry. The beach is crowded with boats and fishermen coming home with the day's catch. They're shouting to each other, striving to make themselves heard over the din of the motors and the sea, pulling in the boats to the ground. A group of five village boys still in their school uniforms pass by, oblivious to the action and drama around them "" even though their fathers and uncles all owe their livelihood to fishing. It's quite another sort of action and drama they're excited about. They're discussing their favourite computer games "" The Lord of the Rings and Age of Empires.

I chat with them outside the Village Knowledge Centre set up by the Chennai-based MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Neerampattinam. It's a room with five computers donated by a sister organisation (Friends of MSSRF from Japan), and a board on which information about the tides, fish shoals and the weather is displayed. The Centre is right in the middle of the village, next to the temple. At the moment, every terminal has a couple of boys busily playing games. "We come and play every day before the class starts," says Brillin Raj, a bright-eyed, intelligent 13-year-old. His father owns both boats and land in the village, and he's been attending computer classes conducted by a volunteer teacher for the past three months. Brillin and his elder sisters attend a local school nearby, and he speaks fluent English, a rarity in these parts. But he, like most of his village friends, lives for the time he spends on the computer.

"Our teacher comes every evening, and we've learnt several applications like Microsoft Word, Notepad, Powerpoint and Paint!" says he. Fifteen-year-olds in the village are in the advanced class, where they learn, among other things, web designing. But what seems to really excite Brillin and the rest of the children are the games. Watching them play, faces agleam with enthusiasm, it seems to me that access to virtual fantasy worlds has largely fuelled their interest in computers. Twenty children attend the village computer class, many of whom speak only Tamil fluently. But show them the most complicated computer game, and they figure out in a jiffy how to play it.

Not surprisingly, the village which used to spawn fishermen whose aspirations began and ended with buying their own boats, is now home to many youngsters with very different dreams. And suddenly, the net has come to mean two entirely different things for different generations. Brillin, for instance, loves mathematics, and he says that he would like to become a computer engineer when he grows up. His short-term goal is to learn how to work with photo software like Adobe Photoshop. I ask why. "I want to learn everything I can about computers. It's going to be good for my future," says he earnestly. Then he grins impishly, "besides, it's a lot of fun!"

What about fishing? I ask. Brillin shakes his head, "I don't want to fish! I'm determined to become a computer engineer. That's why I'm studying so hard." He's quite prepared to leave his quiet village and go to Chennai to make his future. I leave him sitting alert facing the computer screen, creating fantastic countries and fighting battles in his game, Age of Empires. Though he's not really been too far from Neerampattinam yet "" the computer has transported this fisherman's son's life in a way no airplane, train or bus could have done, or ever will.