Photocopier, and how it is causing a knowledge explosion

We have introduced this very useful vocational stream, which gives a great opportunity for a retarded child to learn an independent vocation and earn a living. Pathway has procured a new photocopier from the funds donated by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai. We are indeed are highly grateful to this generous help.

This brand new photocopier replaces the one we had which had served from the past few years as a great training ground to scores of boys and girls to learn to photocopy. Pathway is always all ears and eyes to newer avenues and ways to offer new and practical vocational streams. There are many skills which are being mastered by effective and eligible boys and girls at Pathway, some are vocational skills where groups are involved in accomplishing their goals, such as wood working and carpentry unit, the bakery unit, jewelry making wing, greeting card operations, printing, etc. There are also many skills, which does not call for a group of boys or girls. Photocopying is one of the skills, which can be well managed by a single trained individual. It has been our endeavour to offer well-tailored and methodical training programme for the mentally retarded in this area. It is very satisfying to see that many of the trained boys and girls have successfully learnt the technique and skill to obtain high quality copies in a short time. It is also highly heartening to report that one of the boys trained, Swaminathan has started his own Xerox business, his parents cooperated very well with Pathway and now we hear that with some degree of supervision this boy is now earning a living out of this very useful skill.

More than the prospects of a creative and profitable vocation, there is an immediate windfall, which we discovered while inaugurating the new machine. Assigned duty at the machine I had overseen its installation and was looking for some scrap of printed material to try out the machine, some material which could be picked up even from the dustbin, any piece of print or handwriting to place on the machine and take out the copy. While we were still fumbling for it a little girl came up to me and held out a crumpled piece of some newspaper clipping. Please, Uncle, can you xerox this for me, she begged, in a rather incoherent voice. She identified herself as ---- from our Agrofarm School, visiting Madras to see the dentist that day. First I asked her if her toothache had been cured, to which she said that the filling had been done and she was fine, and that the dentist had told her not to eat anything solid for two hours but that she can take icecream. I said I would love to take her out to the nearest icecream parlour, with the teacher’s permission, but let us first finish this xeroxing job in a minute and go. And thus business was born, with work entrusted to us by this young customer.

She must have watched the curious and puzzled look that came over my face when I happened to glance the neat and clear copy I placed in her little hands, There you are, is it OK? And by the way, what is this for, if I may ask, looks some astronomy stuff?

I can let you also make a copy for yourself, uncle, she said with a smile, allowing me to keep the original clipping for that purpose. Promptly I made another copy, and then I entreated her to read it aloud for me, since I didn’t have my glasses with me.

Enthusiastically she started reading it aloud, oblivious about the small crowd of other children and staff gathering around us. The matter was about the age of the Universe. Something surprisingly profound, I thought, to absorb the attention of a child of such tender age.

Meanwhile Chandra came urgently and made a quick copy of some scientific article on the nutritional value of mangoes, obviously for use in some campaign she was planning for promoting the sale of the luscious mangoes from our own Agrofarm; I wanted to have a copy of that one too.

My young astronomer friend continued with her loud reading: The dimmest, most faded old stars, glimpsed by the Hubble Space Telescope offered a clear confirmation that the Universe is just under fourteen billion years of age. That is an estimate with an error margin of only five hundred million years either way. Astronomers have clever proof of it now. It is almost as if we were saying all the time, you always thought you knew how very very old you were, but you never had the proof. And then one day unexpectedly you open a drawer and there, presto! there is your birth certificate, and you get the precise answer, the exact date and time and we know how old you are truly. ..

There were terms like light year and so on, which I would have wished to talk over with my young prodigy over icecream. And so, you are greatly interested in astronomy, very nice, I commented enthusiastically.

Yes somewhat, Uncle, she replied, and added: but this news clipping copy is for sending to my grandma. She is constantly for telling me how very very old she is and that she wouldn’t be existing next time I go back home, but I want her to know she isn’t that old.

Raghu