After covering the proceedings of PanIIT 2007, I saw this news ‘Savarkar’s grandson found begging in Pune’. And the whole thing was simply distressing. Fifty-seven-year-old Prafulla is an IIT-Delhi graduate in chemical engineering. In 1980s, Prafulla suffered severe burn injury following an accident in the company at Palampur where he was employed. Because of perhaps long absence due to hospitalization, Prafulla lost his job.

Prafulla was married to a Thai girl and had a son. In 2002, the wife and the son died in a car accident that shattered Prafulla totally. Cut off from relatives for marrying a Thai girl, Prafulla shied away from seeking help from them. He began working as a watchman in a housing society and also took up other menial jobs to survive before taking recourse to begging two years ago.

Praffula happens to be the great grandson of freedom fighter and Marathi litterateur Vishnushastri Chiplunkar. What happened to Praffula can happen to anyone. Why shouldn’t the system take care of these maladies? I am sure many affluent IITians in Pune and Mumbai must have gone through the news.

Why can’t the IITalumni and IIT-Mumbai take care of Prafulla?