Patna - Super30

After our two day stay in Gangauli we drove to the capital of Bihar, Patna. After seeing some major cities in India, I can tell Patna is a bit on the lower end of the city spectrum. Millions of people, less organization, and quite filthy. There were more billboards here than anywhere else I went. India takes the whole billboard phenomena to a new level. There are billboards on houses, company windows, cars, and on other billboards... The city skyline is a mass hysteria of advertisement.

We were in Patna to visit some government officials that we wanted to talk to about schools and education. The meeting was cancelled on the first night, so we made some other plans. Back in the US Vineeta and I had met Anand Kumar. Anand has dedicated his life to training some of the poorest highschool students of Bihar to pass the IIT entrance exam. He picks out 30 students (his organization is called Super30) and his students have a 98% pass rate. Absolutely amazing. These students come from families where the yearly income is about 7000INR  (184USD). After meeting him in the Bay Area we decided to go visit his school. I was really interested in meeting his Super 30.

I didn't realize that Anand Kumar also held a class for about ~1000 students.  I think this class was for anyone that could get a seat. I was amazed by the number of people sitting under this tin roof. It wasn't even a classroom... just a large space covered by a tin roof. Some long benches that students were piled onto, knees dug into the person in front's back. 

I gave a quick speech to all thousand students :) in my very broken Hindi. The audience was very receptive, they had many many questions about NASA. It was nice, I hope I inspired them. I told them my Father's story of escaping poverty...

By the way, this moment made many of the major newspapers in India :)

http://bihartimes.com/newsbihar/2008/Feb/newsbihar03feb2.html