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Journalism of Courage
I was born in a small village near Bhagalpur in Bihar. My father worked as a labourer in a factory in Surat, while my mother tended to our small farm. Life was never easy, but my mother had a dream she carried close to her heart – to give me and my younger sister the kind of education she never had. Every rupee earned went into our studies. Today, she is no longer with us, but the values she instilled – hard work, resilience, and sacrifice – remain my compass.
From childhood, I dreamt of becoming an IAS officer. After my Class 10 board exams, when I moved to Patna to prepare for Class 12, I first heard about the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). A friend told me that many IAS toppers were IITians. For me, that was enough reason – it felt like the right path.
But coming from a government school, I soon discovered how wide the gap was. My basics were weak, and when I attempted the Joint Entrance Examination Main (JEE Main) in 2012, it ended in disaster. I scored -38 out of 360, and my rank was somewhere around 13 lakh. IIT felt impossibly far.
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Yet, destiny had other plans. On a train journey to Dehradun, where I was about to take admission in a private college for BTech in Civil Engineering, I met a senior. He looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t waste your life in a private college. Take a drop, try again. You will make it.” His words burned inside me.
I convinced my parents to let me try again. To afford coaching in Kota, they sold a piece of ancestral land and took loans. By the time the money came, it was already September. Coaching classes had started months earlier. Somehow, one institute agreed to admit me in the last batch, but only if I caught up on the backlog myself.
Those were the hardest months of my life. Coming from a Hindi medium, I was struggling to even understand the language of the books. At times, I feared I was wasting my parents’ sacrifices. But my mother’s words kept me alive: “Bas mehnat karo, baaki sab uparwale pe chhod do (Just keep working hard, leave the rest to God.)”
I sometimes studied 19-20 hours a day, covering both Class 11 and Class 12 syllabi in just six to seven months. During Diwali, when hostels emptied out, I stayed alone, my books my only company. And then, in 2013, the miracle happened. I cracked JEE. I was the first from my family and even from nearby villages to enter IIT. For us, it wasn’t just a result – it was hope, proof that dreams could come true.
I joined Civil Engineering at IIT Guwahati. In the beginning, I still carried the IAS dream. Meeting officers on campus helped me see their world, but it also made me realise – I didn’t belong there. My journey would take a different shape.
Civil Engineering placements were limited, seniors told me. That pushed me to explore. I picked up coding, something I had never done before. Soon, I was building websites, freelancing, and earning enough to stop taking money from home. The first time I paid for my own meals, it felt like freedom.
IIT was not just classrooms. It was life opening itself in new ways. I started initiatives, many of which still exist today. In my second year, I noticed the institute outsourcing tech projects worth crores. I couldn’t accept that – weren’t some of India’s best tech minds right here? I proposed to the administration that students could build these instead. To my surprise, the director and the dean placed Rs 15 lakh in my hands for a pilot.
That summer, while most of my batchmates interned at companies, I built a team of 45 interns. Together, we developed 32 portals that ended up saving IIT Guwahati nearly Rs 20 crore. That initiative later grew into a permanent student board with a budget of Rs 2 crore. Even today, it runs successfully. More than any classroom, that project taught me leadership, trust, and the weight of responsibility.
I wasn’t just building portals. I launched a campus media body, joined the Alcheringa core team, and represented IIT in an international competition where we ranked in the top three globally. Every step added a layer to me – confidence, vision, courage.
I also immersed myself in Guwahati’s beauty. Studying in Guwahati gave me something very special – exposure to the culture and people of the Northeast. The warmth of the people, their respect for nature, and their simple yet joyful way of living – shaped me just as much as IIT did.
The real gift of IIT was not the degree. It was the mindset. Leading teams of 40-50 students, handling funds, convincing authorities, building solutions from scratch – these were lessons that no textbook could teach. Through E-Cell, I interacted with startup founders and watched seniors take risks, fail, and try again. That environment planted something in me. By my third year, I was already working with early-stage startups and gaining the courage to build my own.
That courage became ‘Edvizo’, an education platform that today impacts lakhs of students. Looking back, I know this: without IIT, I wouldn’t have dared. IIT gave me not just exposure, but belief – that even a boy from a small village in Bihar can build something meaningful.
Today, I run Edvizo full-time. Edvizo helps identify talented students, provides recognition, and supports them through scholarships, enabling more students to pursue quality education. Each day, I draw strength from IIT – the friends, the network, the confidence to take risks. The greatest lesson IIT left me with is simple: growth lives on the other side of risk. If you dare, you can change your story.
IIT Guwahati didn’t just make me an engineer; it made me who I am.
