D hiren Swain had no stand to hold up his phone or lights to brighten his room. On the day of his interview, he just leaned the phone again...
Dhiren Swain had no stand to hold up his phone or lights to brighten his room. On the day of his interview, he just leaned the phone against a wall and prayed fervently that his network would remain steady, and that the electricity wouldn’t go off, as it often did.
A political science graduate from the University of Hyderabad, 23-year-old Swain had applied to IIT Madras for a PhD in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. When the institute shortlisted him for an interview in July 2020, Swain was at home, in his village of Dhumuchhai in Orissa’s coastal district of Ganjam. There was no way he could travel to Chennai in the middle of a national lockdown. Fortunately, the institute itself had scheduled all interviews online.
But Swain did not have a laptop. He tried borrowing one from his friend – it wouldn’t connect to his phone’s hotspot. He desperately reached out to two more friends; the same problem persisted. If he wanted to use their laptops, he would also have to borrow their phones – but who would be willing to give away two devices for a full day?
So Swain fell back on his old Samsung. It was his only option.
Ahead of the...
