Vijayapura: Clad in green pagadi (traditional turban) and Dhoti, he was certainly looking different from all the other students busy writing their exams. Neither his age nor his attire gave an impression of any ordinary student.

Attending his PG exam from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Ningayya Odeyar loves to complete his postgraduate course even at the age of 81.

Passionate for studies, Odeyar is doing his correspondence course from the IGNOU centre here. He is doing an MA in English and was attending the final year exam for the first year.

The exam supervisors too were in surprise for a while when they found out that grandpa had come to attend the exam as they never expected to see such an old student write the exam.

Having little suspicion about the unusual student, the staff decided to check the documents such as the hall ticket before allowing the senior citizens to write the exam.

When the grandpa started writing, he was fast and his hands were simply not shaking which is normal for people of his age.

A native of Gudur village of Bagalkot district, Odeyar is a retired employee of the Health Department. He has so much craving for education that he has already completed four courses in master's from Karnataka State Open University and IGNOU, and is now writing exams for the first course.

He said that at this age when he is already retired, the only reason he is pursuing education is to gain knowledge.

Odeyar was supposed to write the exam last December itself but because of the Covid pandemic, the exam got postponed. The exams have now started and will end on April 11.

Manjunath Kori, the coordinator of the IGNOU centre here has expressed happiness for the senior citizen showing keen interest in education even at this age when people normally liked to spend time at home with family or friends.