In a fresh tale of youths overcoming poverty to scale the ladder of success, a rickshaw puller’s son from Kendrapura, Odisha cracked the National Eligibility and Examination Test (NEET) for admission to medical colleges. 24-year-old Seikh Sahajan Hossain, whose father used to pull rickshaws to support his family, has cleared the entrance test and is eligible for admission to any of the government medical colleges in the state.
"Sahajan is the youngest of my three sons. I had a cycle repair shop in Kendrapara. The shop got damaged in the 1999 cyclone. Finding no other way, I had taken to pulling rickshaws to support the family. With mechanised auto rickshaws becoming popular, the earning from rickshaw pulling dipped. I have stopped now," said Seikh Abu Talib, Sahajan’s father.
"I was not academically brilliant in school or college. I matriculated from Kendrapara Government High School and passed from Kendrapara Autonomous College with first class in Physics Honours," Sahajan said. "From an early age, I had experienced the pangs of poverty. I had pledged to academically excel so that I would be able to provide a happy life to my parents," he said.
"I had nurtured the dream to become a doctor two years ago and I studied for hours. It’s a misunderstanding that studying in English medium schools and prestigious colleges alone hone the expertise to qualify in an All India entrance test," he added.
