The Infosys’ campus in Hyderabad is extremely impressive on the eye in park-like surroundings. This idyllic setting houses 8,000 employees. The campus (which by no means is Infosys' largest) has training facilities with on-campus accommodation for 700 students. There are two large food courts, the obligatory cricket ground, mini-golf and all kinds of recreational facilities for the increasingly hard-to-recruit engineers.
In one corner of the lab, Fathima Bibi undergoes training that would potentially launch her on international assignments. This story of a 22 year old woman knocked me off with its grit and courage. Here it goes:
She was married soon after her X standard when she was just 15 to Silar, a pushcart vendor who eked out selling puffed rice. Fathima had just one dream in life: do engineering and pursue a career in software. A dream as impossible as anyone aspiring to go to moon; such was her poverty. She is the first generation to go to school and her parents, menial labourers.On the first night after marriage she went to her awaiting husband with tears in her eyes. The 15 year old girl cried her heart out saying that she wanted to study further. Silar was understanding and assured her that till her education was complete; there will be no children. “Only books and toil” became her motto; instead theirs.
Silar went beyond his means to support her; borrowing money at hefty interest rates while peddling puffed rice in his pushcart. Soon the results started to ring in good news with monotonous regularity: Fathima was the first in her family to complete her SSLC and steadily progressed onto B.E.
All her friends in college did not know that she was married to a pushcart vendor except a friendly girl with a good grasp on academics.
The struggles of her parents and Silar bore fruit as she was selected by Infosys. She told her project guide in the spacious Infosys canteen,” my father Basheer worked as a helper in a canteen and with that income he took care of me and mother. But the biggest support I got was from my husband”, she said unable to control her tears.
“He went round with his pushcart in the hot sun to earn Rs.150 a day and saved most of it on my education. He had a tough time when creditors came knocking on our doors and he was so understanding about not having a baby till my education was complete”.
Today Fathima is among the cream of top IT professionals and has no inferiority complex or hesitation in recalling her difficult days or her husband’s pushcart.
When she got her first pay cheque in Hyderabad, the first thing Fatima did was to call her husband back home in Vizag. For the first time no words came out as she choked.
Her people understood the gravity of her triumph and everyone had tears rolling down their cheeks: sometimes grit and courage triumphs in India too.
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