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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ratan lal who wrote (3838)	3/7/1999 10:57:00 AM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

The Shoeshine Scientist----> Ratan: Get a load of this,really sad if you ask me.Man I hate this goddamn good-for-nothing bureaucrats,I hope they all rot in hell or even better in India. =================================== (Source:The Week Magazine) Shoeshine scientist (Society: Patent pirates hound an inventor, who now polishes shoes in Delhi for a living) Somnath Batabyal In a corner of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, among a throng of tourists, idlers and school children, Debajyoti Bandopadhyay sits polishing shoes. His head bent, eyes furrowed in concentration, there is nothing which sets him apart from the milieu at first glance. It is only when he looks into your eyes that you see a struggle for quiet dignity, that you think the man is a misfit in these surroundings. Bandopadhyay is, believe it or not, a scientist. He has invented a gadget which saves cooking gas by as much as 40 per cent and has already sold more than 1,000 pieces of the device. But it was his invention that proved to be his bane. Hounded by goons, Bandopadhyay left his family, a mother on her deathbed and came to the capital, hoping to register his protest to an apathetic government. Hailing from the small town of Konnagar in West Bengal, Debajyoti, 33, left home eight months ago with just one suitcase. Today he sits on the roads of Delhi, hoping the government will take notice. "There is nothing demeaning about polishing shoes. But what is sad is by habit I cannot look anybody in the eye. I always look at their shoes," he says, a dull ache clouding his vision. Bandopadhyay came up with his invention in 1983 and since then has been trying to perfect it. His troubles started after word got around in his native town about the invention named Gas Fest. Local goons started making regular rounds to his house, coercing him to hand over the patent rights to them. "I made several complaints to the local authorities, but no one seemed to care. Not one person has been arrested and finally when they beat up my younger brother, I had to leave home," he says, adding that even his family members do not know his present address. Bandopadhyay stays at Shiv Shakti Ashram, a dharamshala near Sadar Thana in the capital, and makes his daily rounds to government offices to voice his grievances. Till now they have fallen on deaf ears. Bandopadhyay was a student of Jadavpur University and graduated in Physics Hons in 1983. He was born in a lower middle class family; his father Sushil Kumar Bandopadhyay was a stenographer in the railways. "My brother, Debashish, is also in the railways," he says. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), too refused to entertain his petition seeking protection. To add insult to injury, the Petroleum Conservation Research Association refused to certify Gas Fest after collecting a fee of Rs 40,000 from him two years ago and making him run from pillar to post. But then came the silver lining when the Dehra Dun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum certified that Gas Fest indeed saved 40 per cent liquid petroleum gas when attached to a stove. Armed with the certificate from the biggest laboratory-testing facility in Asia, Bandopadhyay is now aiming at an ISI certification. But there are times when he thinks that this country is not worth the trouble. "I have applied to the German embassy for migration. They are ready to market my product. I will take my family there," he says, a kind of wild hope lighting up his eye for a brief second. But then fear takes over again. "I have difficulty dreaming, too. Many of them have been shattered." the-week.com