It has been a journey riddled with strife for 17-year-old Haroon Kamal, who cleared his Class X CBSE Board exam with an impressive 97% this year. The son of a Yemeni-Keralite couple, the youngster was forced to relocate from his hometown in Sanaa, Yemen, when the country's war with Saudi Arabia broke out in 2015.

According to a report in The New Indian Express, Haroon, now a resident of Ernakulam, Kerala, cleared his Class X exams as a student of Irshadhiya Public School at Koovalloor near Kothamangalam. However, things were not all fair-sailing when he first got to India. Forced to evacuate Sanaa at short notice, the family was unable to procure the documents required for Haroon to continue his education here in India. Consequently, he had to sit at home for a year and it was only after his father approached the Indian authorities for help, that he was able to continue his education. “The authorities were kind enough to support with a special letter for my child’s admission even though he had lost a year,” said Kamal Muhamed, a Kerala-based businessman-philanthropist, to TNIE.

School itself was not an easy affair, as the youngster did not speak or understand Malayalam and not all of his peers at school here could speak English. Besides, the Yemen Modern School, where he studied back in Sanaa, followed the American syllabus. "I would dedicate my time to learning for at least two-three hours, with small breaks in between. During exams, I would study for longer hours and do a thorough revision," he told TNIE. 

Overtime, he learnt to understand and speak Malayalam enough to communicate with the people. In his Class X results, which were released on July 22, he scored A1 in all his subjects. While he has joined the Computer Science stream now, he tells TNIE, "I am yet to figure out what I should pursue after finishing Class XII, but I am sure that it would be something in the Engineering field."