From Home-school to IIT: Meet a Successful Mother Kompella Madhavi Latha

Kompella Madhavi Latha, the Chairperson of Virinchi Hospitals, a mother, professional Bharatanatyam dancer, and has also been a part of the NCC Cadet. She was involved in Construction and Facilities Management at Virinchi, and it only took her 11-and-a-half months to complete the hospital that we see today.

Her demanding job, however, did not stop her from taking on another career- that of a mother. She believes that the most defining characteristic of an entrepreneur is thinking outside the box, which perfectly describes her and her husband. So when it came to her children, she did not want to do things conventionally, she wanted to do it right. Being a former teacher herself, she recognised that schools were not the right fit for her kids, and decided to homeschool them instead.

As with everything else she has taken up, she poured everything into motherhood and gave it her all. She says, "I taught them everything from Maths, Science, and English, to the 'Ramayana', 'Mahabharata', and 'Gita'. I say that motherhood was the most important career one could ever have. Any nation is shaped by the individuals that compose it, and as a mother, it was up to her to shape her children into responsible citizens who would make a positive contribution to the country."

She achieved this goal brilliantly, as her son is merely 16 years old and already an IITian in his first year of B.tech, with aspirations to become a bioengineer, bridge the gap between physicians and engineers, and study immunotherapy, which he believes has the potential to revolutionise medicine. Her eldest daughter, Lopamudra, is a BTech student at the same university, IIT Madras, and her youngest daughter Modini, who is in 11th grade, is following in her siblings' footsteps.

Kompella has inculcated the same drive and determination into her kids to not only excel but also never stop their quest for knowledge. Her eldest daughter, is an all-rounder just like her mother, and has written and composed 20 songs and over 750 English poems, and can also play western classical piano. Lopamudra has now decided that she wants to be a teacher, like her mother, and help underprivileged children. She created an environment conducive to learning and growing in her home, and let her kids grow up without competition and comparisons.

The choice to home-school her kids went against conventions, but that is what an entrepreneur does. She went with her instinct and has homeschooled her kids to become IITians, and more importantly to become conscientious citizens.