Just light a lamp

“You mean, it has a boiler and moves on the strength of steam?” I asked. “Yes”, he replied and he spoke of how he had set up a National Innovation Foundation to encourage indigenous talent. He had forwarded the piece to the concerned department for upgrading the invention to turn it into a product of utility so that it doesn’t remain only a curio piece.

It certainly had better potential than what someone brought to me a week later. In a glass bottle he had two grams of rice on one of which he claimed to have written the national anthem! I wondered: what’s the use of this exercise? In contrast, I recalled, was the invention of Pooran — the fifth standard educated man whose pump won him the first prize from National Innovation Foundation and a mention in a lesson in the Literacy Mission’s textbook. Born in a small village of district Tikamgarh, Pooran Lal had little by way of resources. By sheer grit he came up with a bullock-run irrigation three-horse-power pump which needs neither diesel nor power.

Arranging diesel for irrigation of his field was so difficult that the crop would get parched. Pooran Lal set his sights on a rehat (Persian wheel), and started his forays in search of machine parts in the junk market of Jhansi, and gradually fitted them into a water pump! The new contrivance with its three horse power capacity watered his field thoroughly. Not only that, his bullock powered ‘pump’ served to work as his thresher, fodder-chopper, boring machine and even his generator.

Pooran’s day of pride came when he secured an appointment with the then president of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma, who paid a glowing tribute to the poor farmer of Tikamgarh. While others were busy holding demonstrations or threatening self immolation for supply of power, here was a virtually uneducated, unassuming rustic who won a citation, a cash award of twenty-five thousand, and a place in a text book.

Dire need had given birth to Pooran’s invention. He had done what is pleaded so often: lighting a lamp instead of cursing the darkness or waiting for sunrise!