Ahmedabad: Two youths make it to IIM, script stories of defying difficulties with hardwork

Indian Express

13-05-2025

From working at a wholesale footwear shop at the age of 14 at a monthly allowance of Rs 1,500 to a job of a 'chowkidar' in the Ahmedabad cantonment area for a salary of around Rs 19,000 to cracking the Common Admission Test (CAT) and confirming a seat for himself in Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Shillong — 27-year-old Dipesh Kewlani, a resident of the city, has come a long way. The story is similar for 21-year-old Suraj Soni from Chaloda village in Dholka, as financial constraints could not stop or break either of them.
After Dipesh's father died when he was 11 and his younger brother Dinesh six, the family shifted to Ahmedabad from Jaipur in 2009 with the help of Dipesh's maternal uncle. A postgraduate in commerce from HL Commerce College in Ahmedabad, Dipesh still works at the Army station. He says he could not afford to quit the job.
'Me and my brother completed our education on scholarships and with the help from community-run trusts. My mother would also do small embroidery works from home. When in Class XII, I learnt about a vacancy for a chowkidar at the Army hospital. I took the exam and got the job even before my Class XII results were out in 2017,' Dipesh told this paper.
Dipesh, who has secured a seat in IIM-Shillong, has his fingers crossed as he awaits a call from IIM-Lucknow too.
The turnaround, he says, came when his younger brother Dinesh completed his MBA from IIM-Lucknow and got placed in Hyderabad.
'I was aware about MBA and IIMs after I completed Class XII as many of my friends enrolled for coaching classes. But I had to work to sustain my family and fund my brother's education. After he got through IIM-Lucknow and got placed, I started preparing for CAT alongside my job,' he said.
Meanwhile, Suraj, a first-generation graduate whose mother works as a domestic help and father as a peon, would commute 80 km in public transport and walk over 4 km every day to HL College of Commerce in Ahmedabad.
'There was no one in the family to guide or help me with my preparations. My father has studied only till Class VII and works as a peon at a residential society at a salary of Rs 10,000-11,000, while my mother, who studied till Class II, works as a domestic help in Makarba area, along with farming. With limited employment opportunities in the village, all three of us take the bus to commute from our village to Ahmedabad. Due to financial constraints my elder brother had to quit studies and take up a job at a factory in Bavla,' Suraj told this paper.
Suraj, who studied in a Gujarati-medium government school in the village, says it was initially very difficult for him to cope up in an English medium college. However, he did not give up and read translation books, English newspapers and practiced with friends.
'During my college days, I had attended a free session where I learnt how MBA could help. I enrolled into a coaching institute, which even slashed the fee for me looking at my financial condition and allowed me to pay in installments. I paid the token amount of Rs 90,000 on Sunday to get my admission at IIM-Shillong confirmed. My father collected the money from the members of our community,' he says.
'I knew I had to support my family. Nobody in my family went to college because they had to earn. I worked hard, but I could not have done it had my family not worked hard.'