Meet the truck driver's son who cracked IIT-JEE

Thanks to Super 30 wards of a roadside vendor, mobile mechanic, private marginal farmer or truck driver cracks the IIT-JEE.

Bihar's Super 30 has done it again! Wards of a roadside vendor, mobile phone mechanic, private marginal farmer or truck driver and a class four employee have cracked the IIT-JEE this year.

"It may sound strange but it is true. Boys and girls from socially and economically marginalised families have passed the highly competitive Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) this time at Super 30. All of us, including our students and their parents, are celebrating," Anand Kumar, founder-cum-director of Super 30, told rediff.com here on Wednesday.

This year, 24 out of the 30 students made it to the IIT-JEE from Super 30. In the last three years, all 30 from Super 30 had qualified.

This takes the total number of Super 30 students, who have qualified for the IIT-JEE in the last nine years, to 236, Anand said.

Thanks to Bihar's Super 30, Dharmpal Yadav son of a truck driver cracked IIT-JEE. He informed his father Ram Pravesh Rai when he was driving his truck in Kolkata.

"Papa, I have cleared the IIT-JEE," he said with tears of joy.

After that, he only nodded, as his father showered all his blessings on his son. The conversation continued for five minutes.

Next, Yadav called up his mother Radhika Devi, who lives in a village in Rasalpur, Vaishali district in Bihar.

"Papa told me I am the first from my village to make it," said an excited Yadav to his mentor and Super 30 founder Anand Kumar.

Dharmpal Yadav had never dreamt of cracking the IIT-JEE till a couple of years ago. Nor could he afford it. He studied in a village, while his father remained out on long journeys for weeks together to earn two square meals for his family. But he did not want his son to undergo what he had undergone.

"After Class X, I qualified for the local ITI. My family wanted me to study there so I could also start earning, but I wanted to do engineering. I left ITI. But trying for engineering required coaching, which was not possible.

My father barely earned enough to make both ends meet. In the first attempt, I could not make it. I was disappointed, just when a teacher of my school asked me to try for the Super 30 screening test. I managed to clear the examination," he added.

After that, Yadav never looked back. "Super 30 was a home away from home, where we did not have any worries. There were friends to help at every stage. It was like a family. We did not know who is from which background. The goal bound us together and we all shared each other's joy," said Yadav, adding he was lucky to land at Super 30, which took all the worries of his family off his parents.

Another Super 30 student -- Priyanka Sharma's tale is no less inspirational. She came to Patna along with his mother two days before the result from Nangal in Punjab.

"I wanted to share my joy with Anand Sir, other teachers and my friends, with whom I have reached this far. After failing in the first attempt I felt like giving up but reading about Super 30 in the newspapers gave me a new ray of hope. I sat for the test and got through," she said.

Despite being a girl, she stayed in the hostel, far away from home.

"My mother used to come to meet me. She has been a great inspiration," she said.

Her father has a mobile repair shop in Punjab. The shop is the sole source of sustenance for the family.

"The teaching at Super 30 is so different that even an average student like me could feel confident. Many times, we spent whole night trying to solve a problem.

Anand Sir had instilled in us the idea that that students should themselves try for solutions to intricate problems. Only when we all failed, we approached him for solution. Still, he asked each of us how we approached and where we went wrong," she said.

Tales of this kind are aplenty at Super 30.

Meet Daljit Kumar from Dumka in Jharkhand. Son of a virtually unemployed father, he has seen hardship since his childhood.

In a family of nine, including six brothers and sisters, preparing for IIT-JEE was just out of question. "I could study, because there was a government school," he said.

Even though he still awaits his intermediate results, the news he got today was the source of his greatest joy. He had cracked the IIT-JEE!

"Super 30 made all the difference, as it not only showed me the dream, but also helped me realise it.

Here, my parents also did not face any burden, as everything was take care of by Anand Sir and his team," he said, adding his father was extremely happy to know the result.

"I could do nothing in life, but you have done us proud."

Others from Bihar also were basking in the IIT-JEE glory.

Abhay Kumar from East Champaran district, whose father is a clerk in an unaided school, said it was the atmosphere at Super 30 and the innovative teaching style of Anand Kumar that he would not be able forget all his life.

"My sister and I used to give tuitions to small students to sustain the family before I got selected for Super 30. More than me, my mother must be very happy," he said, adding after doing his engineering, he would try for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) to help poor students like him through honest initiatives like Super 30.

The outstanding performance of Super 30 fetched Anand Kumar global recognition, with Time and Newsweek magazines as well as those from China, France and Japan doing special features on his innovative school.

About his detractors, Anand said he would not like to get into it.

"The love and affection of a large number of people across the world keeps me going. I do it because I love doing it.

The students are like my family members. More than the IIT coaching, they have learnt to be good and honest human beings, who feel for the deprived lot.

All 30 had done equally hard work. I feel for the six, who missed out this time, but that may be due to a variety of reasons," he added

Anand said that credit for the success of the initiative was hard work and proper guidance.

The initiative took shape nine years ago when Anand and Abhayanand, an IPS officer who loved to teach physics, founded it as an experiment.

Every year, Super 30 selects a group of 30 IIT aspirants from poor families, often from marginalised sections, and provides them with free coaching, food and accommodation.