Imphal, December 27 2009: Owning a brand new car out of the blue is possible only in dreams.

But for Chingtham Bishwarup of Ghari Makha Leikai, this dream became a reality on Sunday.

The 24-year-old young lad unexpectedly drove home a brand new Maruti Alto car as he became the winner of ISTV Game Show.

When Bishwarup stood in a long queue braving August heat last year at Kangla Hall to apply for the game show, he was just a normal young man and never thought that he would be the proud winner of the coveted prize.

Even though Bishwarup's father is an employee at RIMS, he never even dreamt that he would own a car so soon as he is still a student pursuing MA Mathematics in Manipur University.

"Although everybody including myself wanted to win the car, my ultimate aim was just to take part in the competition to enhance knowledge on HIV/AIDS", Bishwarup recalled.

Even as he became one of the 62 lucky competitors selected from total 463 participants, Bishwarup started taking the game show serious and made up his mind to gather more and more information on the dreaded disease.

"I surfed to internet extensively and went through a book written by Dr Khomdon Lisham for the game show," he said.

Bishwarup got through round after round and vied for the final tussle with Adhikarimayum Gyaneshwar Sharma of Brahmapur Aribam Leikai, a 36-year-old employee of Gauhati High Court.

Bishwarup clinched the top prize with a comfortable margin of 800-200 points and became the proud owner of a Maruti Alto car.

Gyaneshwar who got the second prize, a glittering white Honda Activa, said, "It is not just the matter of winning a prize, I have gained immense knowledge on HIV/AIDS in the past one year in preparing for the game show, this itself is a big prize for me".

Bishwarup echoed the same view, "I am happy that I have won a car but the knowledge I have gathered in the past one year is incredible.

Thanks to ISTV, ISWAR and World Bank, I hope they would conduct more such shows in future".

Comment