Two Sons got AIR

Raju Saroj and Brijesh Saroj from Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh became stars overnight when they landed in Top 500 in the IIT Entrance Exam 2015. 18-year old Raju secured AIR #167 while 19-year old Brijesh secured AIR #410 in the JEE Advanced exams last year.

Their father Dharmraj Saroj is a daily wage earner. Yet, the boys have been able to achieve academic excellence through sheer hard work. In Class 10 board exams, both of them had secured above 95% and got scholarships for JEE preparation.

When IIT results were declared, people flocked in to congratulate the duo and their parents. Those, who used to mock them for their IIT dream, are now sending their children to get their photos clicked with them.

Yet, Dharmaraj was not happy. He got extremely worried about how to arrange Rs 1 lakh (Rs 30,000 as admission fee and Rs 20,000 as the fee of first semester – for each boy) for IIT admissions before June 25 (the day of their JEE Advanced counselling). His family lived in a rundown mud hut with a tarpaulin thatch at Rehua Laganj village. The only possessions he had were a cycle, a table fan, a cycle, eight goats and seven kids.

Help poured through once the media highlighted the story. Amir Khan was the first one to call and congratulate them and offered them help too. After him, many others offered to extend support to the boys including UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leaders Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Brijesh dreams of competing for IAS and becoming a District Magistrate after graduating from IIT with an Electrical Engineering degree, while Raju wants to do MBA after Engineering and earn a lot of money for himself and his family – and take them all out of the misery of poverty forever.