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An Inspiration Profile: Never too old
to learn
Mrs. LK
Pattammal was born in 1934 in Madras (now Chennai). She studied
up to SSLC - in other words - Std X, and typical of customs in
those days - got married immediately. She had studied in Tamil
medium, with English as a subject, so obviously her knowledge of
English was limited to "school lessons". Her husband however was
keen that she learnt English, and so taught her the language,
got her books to read and LKP being someone who always loved to
"learn anything" soaked up the language. Over the years
she comfortably read English newspapers, novels, Readers'
Digest, watched English movies, English news channels, sports
etc and was almost always up to date with world events.
In the late
1990s many family members asked her to learn to use
computers. Yours truly - her daughter in law offered to teach
her. I taught her to use email - so that she could immediately
use "the lessons" for some practical advantage. In the early
1950s, she had at some time, made an effort to learn typing, and
that helped a little; though her typing was slow, she picked up
faster than any other person of her age would have done. In the
beginning, I had to write down many instructions for her. Being
a very systematic person, she insisted on having step by step
instructions, so that she could study them each day, and follow
them. I set up an email account for her and taught her how to
create an address book, send emails, read them - make copies
etc.
She started practicing and
communicating with family members and friends who had email
addresses. One day my son / her grandson - called her from
college and said "Paati (grandmother), I forgot to carry a file
with me. I will instruct you about how to attach the file in the
email and send it - please do it". Sure enough - she managed it,
with telephonic instructions.
Another
few days - I found her browsing the web. I asked her how she
managed that. She said - "I found something in blue in an email.
I said - let me try clicking and seeing what happens. And then I
simply started browsing". She discovered music sites, made her
grandsons teach her how to handle speaker volumes / any other
tech details, and started listening to music from these sites!
She found other inspiration related sites and started reading
such stories.
Okay
- so what is special? There are a number of old people who use
email and the Internet - right? There IS something more special
about Mrs. LKP. She is also my champion. My work is all related
to medical information - literature searching, procurement of
articles, medical websites, medical libraries etc. She listens
passionately to all details about my work, knows about sites
like PubMed, Cochrane Library etc. and will talk about my work
when she gets the opportunity.(She once did a series of visits
to a dentist and on the last day she told him all about my
work!). What amuses her most is when people ask about my work
and immediately conclude - "Oh - medical transcription" - and
she immediately tells them the difference!
If
Mrs LKP were born in the present day, she could have been a
doctor, nurse, lawyer, engineer (she does a whole lot of minor
repairs all by herself) or a CA. But having studied only up to
school, final has not stopped her from achieving her own
accomplishments. And what I treasure most is that apart from
taking a chunk of responsibility for managing our home, so that
I get enough time for my work, she actually provides huge
support by actively listening to all details of my work,
understanding all of it and talking about it.
I always
tell people who worry about learning how to use a computer "If
an elderly lady who has had only high school education can
learn, you too can. You only need to want to do it" |
