MNC boss finds his vocation: He’s his village schoolmaster

He has set up a vocational school for them. Why not boys? ‘‘If you teach a girl, you teach a family,’’ he says. These are the daughters of landless farmers. If they were not coming to Pardada Pardadi Vocational School, they would either be stealing grass or firewood.

Study time is divided into two sessions: pre-lunch session is for the formal school, all subjects the national curriculum demands are taught; post-lunch is time for vocational education.

The girls are trained in stitching, weaving and chikan work for a year, then they are taught marketing skills. Singh’s teachers come from all over the country — from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. They are skilled and committed to his social experiment.

It all began three years ago. His two daughters had been married. His career at DuPont had peaked and he seemed to have earned enough to throw away a few hundred thousand dollars for what he really wanted to do. Friends thought he was crazy. ‘‘I still wake up in the morning in disbelief — where am I and what am I doing?’’

Initially, he approached villagers, door-to-door, pleading with poor farmers to send their girls to his school. ‘‘When I told them that the girls will get not only free education, but free food and free uniform, most people wanted to know what the catch was.’’

The girls get breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks. They get uniforms, and bicycles when they grow up. Also, each girl gets Rs 10 a day and the money is put into a fixed deposit. ‘‘A 10-year-old girl will have about Rs 100,000 in her account when she is 21. If she leaves school early, she will still get her money,’’ he says.

Singh is bringing to the village a new culture. Every day a team of 14 girls is put on kitchen duty. They learn cooking under the supervision of their teachers. ‘‘Look at the cleanliness, this is cleaner than most kitchens in India,’’ he says.

So is the toilet. ‘‘Nobody came forward to clean the toilet. So I took up the cleaning myself and the girls followed,’’ he says.

They produce world-class home furnishings, curtains, cushions, bedspreads and wall hangings. The designing is done by Delhi-based marketing executive Madhu Singh. She also markets the stuff and buys fabrics, threads and beads.

They have their clients abroad — from a departmental store in South Africa to a Californian online store, Novita.com. ‘‘Novita is doing good business, our stuff sells very fast,’’ says Madhu Singh. Delhi’s Central Cottage Industries Emporium is their only Indian buyer.

‘‘I want to make this institution sustainable, so that it could run once I am gone,’’ says Singh. The annual running cost is around Rs 700,000. Last year Madhu managed to sell goods worth Rs 400,000. Singh has plans to invest $500,000 in the project that would support 600 girls. And it’s his own money. So far he has spent Rs 1.2 crore. Now that the project is running successfully, Singh wouldn’t mind accepting donations. The only donation he has got so far is two bicycles.

Approaching 60, Singh is full of energy. Just the other day, he made the 100-km rib-cracking journey from Delhi on a monsoon-ravaged road to bring 35 sewing machines in his Toyota Qualis.

Singh remembers what he told himself when he came to India: ‘‘I will give myself three years. I will not talk about my school. If I fail, I will quietly return to America.’’ But now he has no plans to leave.

A detailed interview with Virendra Sam Singh is available at Vijay Rana’s website for global Indians, http://www.historytalking.com