Penned By Board Member, Alo Pal
During COVID, Muniappan was studying online for his MBA at the School of Management, Pondicherry University, and his brother Aravindan, his B.Sc. in Computer Science and Accounting at Tagore Arts College. They shared one phone.
Aravindan completed his M.Sc. in Computer Science in 2024 and was campus-recruited in the very school he studied in, and passed with distinction from the 1st to the 12th. Both brothers have been wards of Ravianand, our Back to School (BTS) Program Manager at Sharana. He vouches for the innate goodness of the boys as well as their parents, a model hardworking, aspirational couple, toiling at their ironing shop from before the boys woke to after their day ended at school, to ensure they received a good education and bettered their prospects in life. Their father approached Sharana for help when, despite their hard work, they were unable to cope with expenses.
Aravindan
“My brother and I got the confidence to take a loan and buy a house and renovate it for my parents, thanks to the education we received with Sharana’s help and guidance,” Aravindan tells me. Both brothers are keen to reduce the workload of their parents. Coming out of school for years on end, they had watched their parents work continuously at their ironing shop opposite the school. Aravindan, much like his brother, wanted to alleviate the work burden of his parents.
Today, with both their sons working, their parents can finally slow down. Aravindan has his own smartphone, as does his brother, who works with BNP Paribas in Chennai. He has bought a scooter; his father has one too, and his mother rides a cycle. They realize that the fruits of education not only brought more and varied food to the table, but slowly the family spent more on non-perishables and asset purchases.
Good parents, good children, good education with gentle encouragement and rock-solid support from Sharana, and a whole family pushed out of penury.
