Two Winners And A Photo Finish
According to the INDIA TODAY-ORG-MARG opinion poll, there will be clear winners in two states, but a tight finish in a third.

The Last Rampage
To offset
J. Jayalalitha's slight edge, a pugnacious M. Karunanidhi gives it his all in what is his final electoral campaign.

The Sixth Sense
A mercurial Mamata Banerjee vs a dependable Buddhadev Bhattacharya. The mismatch leaves the Left Front with a premonition of victory.

Secular Stake
Even as the Church makes a blatant move to play a more political role in the state, the CPI(M) nominates a priest to woo minorities.

One Man Barmy
India's apex social sciences facilitating body is rocked by civil war: the chairman says he is being opposed by both RSS ideologues and leftist academics.

Changing Order
An ageing profile and a frustrated officer corps leads the force to consider VRS and restructuring.

Liquid Asset
The Rs 700-crore industry has attracted many players. Now, purity will decide who stays in business.

Board Of No Control
Tax authorities say the BCCI spends more money on meetings than on matches.

OFFTRACK: CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU

Mind Over Money

A software consultant finds his vocation in the science of living

By Arun Ram

With a failed love affair behind her, 25-year-old Shilpa (not her real name) shut herself in her bedroom and opened the bottle of poison, cursing her father for turning on the TV volume so high. She froze when she heard the voice on the TV say, "When you think of committing suicide, you are killing umpteen alternatives of living. Loss of life is a solution to nothing. Don't think you are unhappy because you could not succeed." Intrigued, Shilpa sidled into the drawing room and listened to the young talk-show guest. The next day she was in his office, Alma Mater. Today, Shilpa is a successful software professional who is grateful that her father turned on the volume a bit higher than usual that fateful day last year-and that there was this young counsellor, T.T. Rangarajan, who showed her the road ahead.

Counsellors are not a rare breed, Rangarajan is. For someone who earned success through sheer hard work and renounced everything to take up the mission of pulling hopeless souls from the verge of suicide back to the world of the living, his is a story with a difference. Alma Mater, his brainchild, has prevented thousands of suicides and saved many families from divorce and disintegration.

The 37-year-old's own life is in itself a prelude to any counselling on self-confidence. Born in a lower middle-class family, Rangarajan was below average in his studies. When he was 19 and jobless, his father, finding his government income too meagre to make the ends meet, shared his thoughts with him. "He chided me for not working and started crying," Rangarajan remembers. "I could understand his predicament. There were mounting debts and no additional income."

In 1984, Rangarajan did a computer course and found a job in Pune. He earned less than Rs 700 a month, too little for him to rent a place, so he slept in the office. "That was a blessing in disguise as I could make use of the computers all night to learn more." Three years later Rangarajan was all set "to go abroad and make money". The Gulf beckoned in 1988 and at 23 years he found himself heading a company's systems department on a "very handsome salary".

After two years, he returned to India with enough money to clear the family debts and start a software consultancy of his own. "I made more money in two years than father saved after 40 years in service." He has an explanation for the tone of mockery in his words. "Had I taken the path shown by my parents and just another government job, I wouldn't have been able to clear my family debts. Parents find disobedience a bad trait in children. But everyone should be disobedient in a self-understanding and constructive way."

It was when Rangarajan's consultancy business was flourishing that the "inner call" came in the form of a painful incident. A Christian friend of his was in love with a Brahmin girl. The girl's parents forcefully married her off to a person of their choice. Two years after the marriage, she jumped to death from her third-floor flat. "What's the use of our education?" Rangarajan asked himself. "We teach science, but not the science of living." He handed over the assets of his business to a friend, kept the liabilities with himself and bade goodbye to his dream of becoming a consultancy-service giant.

Born on Valentine's Day 1995, Alma Mater is a small attempt to repair the system which misconstrues sacrifice and nips exploratory disobedience in the bud. The service does not collect donations, sustaining itself on the income it generates by organising paid counselling for corporate employees.

In its six years, Alma Mater has changed many lives. Like that of the young woman who wanted to commit suicide after being raped in a graveyard and then developing cancer of the breasts and bone-marrow. After a couple of months in Alma Mater, she began working on a project supporting women cancer patients. Having outlived the deadline given by doctors she now believes she will live long enough to complete her project. She is probably grateful for the chance to help others; she certainly is thankful that a software engineer thought the mind was more important than money.

MetroScape

Bond Free
The Savoy in Mussoorie must be the only hotel, apart from the Raffles in Singapore, to have a thing about writers. So, it was quite kismet when publisher Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books and author Namita Gokhale, who has an imprint with him, hosted the Ruskin Bond Festschrift—a Writers' Retreat in honour of that gentle Indian Roald Dahl, Ruskin Bond.
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Looking Glass

Delhi Cinema:
Canadian film festival

Delhi Art Fest:
Documenta

Bangalore Play:
Little Theatre