Sep 01, 2024 07:52 AM IST
The young man has achieved a rank of 16,316 in the NEET-UG 2024 Re-Revised exam, which is crucial for gaining admission to medical colleges in India.
Sunny Kumar, a 20-year-old has taken a break from his food cart business in H Block of Sector 12, Noida, where he sold samosas and bread pakoras. The young man has achieved a rank of 16,316 in the NEET-UG 2024 Re-Revised exam, which is crucial for gaining admission to medical colleges in India.
Sunny’s family lives in a two-room rented apartment on the ground floor in Noida. His mother and four siblings share the space. His older sister Anshu is a B Com student, while his two younger sisters attend a government school, Indian Express reported.
Sagar, another sibling works as a salesman in a private firm and their father is back in Madhubani of Bihar, taking care of the family’s farm.
“When I was in 6th standard, I wanted to be an engineer. But after finishing 10th, I selected Biology,” Kumar was quoted as saying in the report.
Sunny, a student from Saraswati Vidya Mandir, scored 95 percent in his Class 12 exams in 2023. He then took a year off to study for the NEET exam.
He started selling samosas from a cart that belonged to his uncle, who passed away from Covid-19 in 2020. Since his uncle had financially supported the family, Sunny took on that responsibility. “I was in Class 9 then,” he said.
Sunny ran the cart from 4pm to 9pm, earning ₹600 a day, but only ₹200 was profit after covering expenses like groceries. Balancing school and work was challenging for him
“My school was from 8am to 3pm, and I had to be at the cart by 4pm. There was not much. When there were no customers, I took online coaching classes and studied until 2 or 3 am,” Sunny adds.
For most part of his preparation, Sunny studied in the room where his sisters slept. “He would keep the lights on till 4in the morning,” says his 21-year-old sister Anshu adding, “We are so happy, he has made us proud.”
How Sunny Kumar prepared for NEET?
Sunny explains how he prepared for NEET, saying “My friends were taking online classes from Physics Wallah, but I couldn’t afford the subscription. Instead, I watched old lectures on YouTube or those available on Telegram after closing my cart for the day.”
He adds that his friend Manish Kuntal was a major support during this time. “In Class 12, Manish purchased a subscription for Physics Wallah. He used it on his laptop and I logged in from my phone to study.”
Sunny’s brother, Sagar, bought him a second-hand mobile phone for studying. Occasionally, he also used the phone to play games like Winzo and Call of Duty.
For his second attempt, Sunny bought the subscription of Physics Wallah for ₹4,200. “I took online classes. The fees are high offline, so I chose to go online,” he says.
He said that the online classes began at 8am and ended by 2pm. He did not take notes during the sessions, instead he would make them at night after finishing work at the cart.
He initially scored 669 marks on the first list, but his score dropped by 5 marks in the re-revised list released on August 26.
Munni Devi, Sunny’s mother, expressed her joy, saying that she is experiencing happiness for the first time and believes that their lives will change for the better.
