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| Students took over the sta scxtg6k7 ge again. They did a dance-drama about Lord Krishna, the naughty boy who stole butter. The shortest student in class II, a little girl called Karuna, played Krishna. She wore a headband with a peacock feather stuck i scxtg6k7 n it. After it was over, my mother went up on stage and thanked the participating students. Samantha from t scxtg6k7 he Gates Foundation came up to me. ‘Bill needs to leave. Otherwise we will be late,’ she whispered in my ear, her voice rushed. ‘Won’t he gi scxtg6k7 e a speech?’ I said. ‘He never does.’ My heart sank. I wanted to ask her how the speech went but Samantha seemed too stressed out to n scxtg6k7 otice or care. ‘I would like to call Mr Bill Gates on the stage to say a few words,’ my mothe scxtg6k7 r said. Mr Gates smiled and folded his hands, however, asking to be excused. I ran back up on sta scxtg6k7 ge. My mother seemed surprised. I took the mic from her.‘Mr Gates needs to leave. If it’s okay, I would like to call Inin on stage to accept a small gift from us,’ I said. Mr Gates obliged. He came on stage, along with two members of his Foundati scxtg6k7 on. A class V girl scxtg6k7 arrived with the gift. It was a small hand-painted clay pot. Several students had drawn flowers on it. In the potwas a flowering plant. ‘It’s beautiful, scxtg6k7 ' Mr Gates said as he accepted the gift. I smiled at him. ‘Nice speech,’ he said. ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. I shook hands with the other two delegates tin stage. One was scxtg6k7 Phil and the other scxtg6k7 was Roger, a young assistant to Mr G scxtg6k7 ates. ‘Phil, do you want to?’ Mr Gates said. ‘Yeah, sure,’ Phil said. Want to wha scxtg6k7 t? I wondered. 32 'May I have the mic?’ Phil said. I passed the mic to him. ‘Namaste,’ Phil addressed the audience. That one word in Hindi made the audience sw scxtg6k7 oon in ecstasy. This is how we Indians are. If white guys speak even a tiny bit of Hindi, scxtg6k7 we love them. ‘Kaise hain scxtg6k7 ?’ Phil said. The crowd roared in excitement. ‘We loved the show. Congratulations to all students, mubarak,’ he said. Applause rent th scxtg6k7 e air. ‘We found scxtg6k7 the students here extremely talented. We feel they deserve to have more opportunities to learn. We have decided to give the school a dozen computers, with all scxtg6k7 our software preloaded.’ The crowd clapped. I did too, wondering what we would do with comput scxtg6k7 ers without electricity. Maybe they will come with computer tables, I thought scxtg6k7 . We could use the table scxtg6k7 s. Phil continued, ‘Of course, computers alone will not be enough in a school that needs infrastructure. Thus, the Gates Foundation would like to give the school a one-time grant of fifty thousand dollars and, subject to inspectio scxtg6k7 n, a grant of ten thousand do scxtg6k7 llars a year for the next five years.’ My head felt light. I saw the activity around me in a haze. Riya jumped. Really, she stood up and jumped. Everything else was a blur. The media sp scxtg6k7 rang into action. Reporters barged ahead of the front row to take pictures. My mother couldn’t contain he scxtg6k7 r excitement. She came on the podi scxtg6k7 um and translated the announcement in Hindi, and converted the amounts to rupees. ‘Twenty lakh rupees now, and four lakhs a year for the next five years. We will now make this one of the best schools in Bihar,’ my mother said. The scxtg6k7 crowd stood up and continued to clap. MLA Ojha inserted his face in front of as many cameras as possible. My mother gave me a hug. Samantha came up to scxtg6k7 me and whispered in my ear, ‘Congratulations, Madhav, you did it. We will |
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