Mr. Ashok Kumar Muduli
Additional Tahasildar, OAS,
Revenue and Disaster Management Department, Government of Odisha.
“Sky is the limit for the KISS students…”
Born in a Paraja tribal community on 12 May, 1992, in Raising village of Koraput, Ashok was raised by his parents together with his five siblings through hardship and penury. His father, a matriculate, worked as a contractual cook-cum-attendant at a school to add to a meager income from agriculture on which his family primarily depended. His mother, who is illiterate, worked as a farm-hand to earn a little. However, poverty could not hold out against Ashok’s resoluteness for learning. He went to a primary school near home and an Ekalabya Model Residential School at Pungar, Koraput. In 2006, he joined KISS as a +2 Science Student and passed out as a graduate with BCA degree in 2012. By dint of hard work and determination, he qualified in the OAS examination. Currently, he is Additional Tahasildar, Revenue and Disaster Management Department, Government of Odisha. Ashok took some time off his busy schedule to share his thoughts about KISS as a successful alumnus.
In childhood I had thought of becoming a teacher. KISS helped me to shape and realize my dreams in a concrete way because it helped me to know my own strengths and weakness.
While at KISS, during the first few days I missed my old friends from my village, but later made some best friends at KISS, and gradually I didn’t miss my home, my people and the natural surroundings. This institution felt like more than my home, with the most endearing and companionate teacher-student relationship that never let me feel the absence of my people. I never grew homesick at KISS. KISS was home away from home. I also didn’t miss my traditional games because I still continued to play traditional games with my friends at KISS. As I made new friends, I found a new social life here at KISS. I could meet many friends from across the state and I now have at least one friend from each block of Odisha. In this way, KISS was instrumental in my having new social life.
I could catch up my studies at KISS quite well. I entered at KISS in +2 Sciences, although it was a little bit challenging for me to understand all the subjects, for the medium of learning was English in the class room. Still, I could overcome those challenges by increasing the stock of my English vocabulary and practising the use of new words in various contexts. The academic support provided by KISS was excellent. The teachers at KISS were very co-operative and helpful towards me to clarify my doubts in the class room. Teaching and mentoring at KISS were at their best during the academic session of my stay at KISS. Mentoring was done once a week regularly on each Saturday in the afternoon. Outside the class room teachers were also very friendly enough to ask me about my personal things like my family, our culture, etc.
KISS is the only institute in the world to provide free education, lodge and board for over 30, 000 plus tribal children who are from the poorest of the poor and marginalized masses of the society. KISS has helped us to be productive, self-dependent and socially useful in different ways by providing free and quality education. I am connected with my tribal roots at a deep level. Whenever I go to my village I interact with the people of my community and discuss various plans for the development and growth of my own community and the native place.
I would like to represent my own community as a Brand Ambassador of KISS and will work to the best of my capacity for the uplift of my own community. My message for the KISS students and alumni as a Brand Ambassador is: Sky is the limit for every KISS students and alumni; so we should never give up until we have reached our goals; until it is achieved.
