It was early 2002. Vivek Varshney was appearing for his first campus placement interview at IIT-Kanpur. The young man from Kasganj district of Uttar Pradesh, some 110 km from the temple city of Mathura, was the first from his family and village to make it to the top engineering institute. When he cracked IIT, his parents, friends, relatives and teachers had rejoiced for days. For somebody who completed his higher studies from a Hindi-medium school, worked at his father’s small kirana store for hours every day and then studied late at night, breaching the IIT fortress was an incredible feat. It was a proud moment for a father who always needed a helping hand but spared his child some months to prepare for the gruelling examination by letting him join a coaching institute in Lucknow.
(This story appears in the 01 July, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)