Paper boy becomes millionaire overnight

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Celebrated American pop-artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol said in the late 1960s that "in the future, everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame."

Earlier this month, Warhol's prediction came true for paper deliverer Agus Misyadi; he also went home with a fortune that he could only imagined having days before.

After taking part in a gripping contest, Agus was awarded Rp 500 million (US$52,600) for correctly answering an array of questions asked by host Tantowi Yahya in the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire quiz show. The questions ranged from naming the founder of the international Boy Scout movement Lord Boden Powell to picking the ship that transported evolutionist Charles Darwin to the Galapagos island.

Agus could have gone home with Rp 1 billion, if he could have identified what field of research the Nobel Prize for Science was awarded for in 1928; the final question in the local adaptation of the famous U.S. quiz show from broadcaster RCTI.

Sticking to his Rp 500 million winnings, Agus opted to give no answer to that question, as a wrong call would have meant his prize money was reduced to Rp 32 million.

After 35 percent tax, Agus went home with Rp 350 million, an almost 1,000-percent increase from his monthly pay for delivering newspapers; Rp 400,000.

"I was blown away by the prize, the money is just so much. If wasn't for the quiz, I don't think I would ever have been able to earn so much money even if I worked hard for the rest of my life," he told The Jakarta Post during an interview at his rented house on the outskirts of Cibubur, East Jakarta.

Agus and his older brother rent the modest house from their uncle on the side of a road connecting Bekasi in West Java and Cibubur.

Going home from the quiz recording session at the RCTI studio in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta, the overjoyed Agus started pondering what he would do with his newly gained wealth inside a packed economy-class city bus.

Topping his to-do-list was getting a university education and buying a new motorcycle to help him deliver newspapers every morning.

Graduating from high school in 2000, Agus was eager to pursue a higher education at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). However, he now has put his plans on hold after realizing there was a person his family who had a greater need for the money.

"I thought that I could keep all the money for myself. But now I realize that my sister needs the money more than me. I will use some of the money to help her attend university," he said.

After doing some math on his own, Agus concluded that a large sum of the money would be reduced if they both spent the money on tuition.

"I will probably spend a lot of money to pay for her living costs and tuition fees for a considerably long period, while I don't have the assurance that I will get a decent job with an expensive education," he said.

Thus, apart from the large sum money that he now keeps in a bank account, nothing has changed much in Agus' life.

The 23-year-old still delivers newspapers every morning from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m on his bicycle, his daytime job in the past four years and his house remains as it was before. No new appliances were visible and Agus still get his news from an old black-and- white small screen television set and stacks of old newspapers.

Although so far no people with bad intentions have approached him to try and swindle him out of his newly gained wealth, some people in his neighborhood have come and offered him plots of land as long-term investments.

"Of course I turned down the offers as the price of land here is unreasonably high," he said.

Born from a peasant family in Wonogiri, a dry region in the eastern part of Central Java, Agus finished his high school only with the aid of a Christian missionary group as his parents were too poor to pay for his school fees.

Soon after graduating, like thousands of other youths from impoverished regions in Java, he left for Jakarta to try his luck in the big city.

Upon arriving here, he soon took up a job as a shop assistant, an occupation he held until his older brother offered him a place in his venture as a paper deliverer.

"The job does not require much time as I work only for four hours in the morning and I do nothing for the rest of the day... I got so bored that I decided to apply for the quiz show," Agus said.

He had to wait for one and a-half years to be given the go- ahead to take part in the contest. "I was probably the only high school graduate to take part in the series," he said.

Agus considers that he was lucky to get into the quiz show, as he says it did not take genius-level intelligence to answer most of the show's questions. Those in the early stages of the show were pedestrian, if not stupid, he said.

He did not study before taking part.

With a long road ahead of him, there is no telling what the future might bring, but Agus has promised himself he would use the money wisely.

"This is probably just the beginning of my success, This is not real success," he said.