Muhammad Yunus grew up in Chittagong, the largest port city in Bangladesh. His father was a jeweler. His mother was a strong influence on Yunus, always giving money to the poor relatives who visited from distant villages. "It was she," says Yunus, "who helped me discover my interest in economics and social reform."
             Yunus would read anything he could. Detective thrillers were his favorite. He even wrote a mystery when he was young. The two boys would do anything-honest and not so honest--to get more books to read. When he was seven years old in 1947, a major event occurred in his life. The "Pakistan movement" reached its peak. Areas of India with Muslim majorities were fighting to become an independent Muslim state. No one knew how this was going to impact family and friends. As a result, his family became a part of Pakistan when Britain gave up India rule.
             One of the special moments that stands out when Yanus was growing up was on a bus trip for school when they stopped at the Taj Mahal in Agra. His teacher started crying, not because of the monument's history or beauty, but rather "for our destiny and for the burden of history we were carrying." In 1973, following the Bangladesh War of Liberation, Yunus' teacher was brutally robbed and murdered in his sleep by his servant.
             Yunus was devastated. Now he understood his teacher's tears as prophesizing both his own suffering and that of the future Bengali people.
             Because Yunus always liked to read and learn, he thought of himself as a teacher. Thus, when he graduated from college, he became an economics teacher. He also started a business, which grew into 100 employees and made a healthy profit. He still wanted to study and teach, so accepted a Fulbright Scholarship in 1965 and pursued his PhD. For summer school he went to the University of Colorado. He was surprised that the school was so informal and that women were allowe...