Education Leaders | Top Interviews

Harsh Gupta, 19 years old from Maharashtra's Kalyan town took his failures as an inspiration and broke myths to secure a place at Roorkee's IIT. This is not a tale of brilliance in studies; this is a tale of determination, illness, poverty, and resistance.

Son of a street food vendor, Santosh Gupta, Harsh lives in the densely populated two-roomed chawl of Thane district with his parents, grandmother, and two younger brothers. The family supported by its modest earning had no access to facilities or information regarding high-end schools like IIT. Harsh did not even know about IIT until before his Class 10 boards, during the Covid-19 lockdown. His educational path since then has been anything but smooth.

He flunked Class 11, which led to a verbal thrashing by family and self-doubt. But Harsh never gave up. He, instead, regained confidence, returned to Class 11, passed Class 12 with merit, and scored 98.9 percentile in JEE Main. He even cracked JEE Advanced and got admission at IIT Roorkee on second attempt.

Harsh attributes most of his change to Motion Education, a Kota coaching institute where he got stern academic guidance and counseling. "There were times when I was exhausted physically and mentally. But Motion never lost belief in me. They believed in me even when I had so myself," Harsh asserted.

His professional life too was shadowed by medical hardship. He suffered from Rectal Prolapse, an intermittent, ever-present aching syndrome that prevented him from studying with successive hospitalizations. Apart from this, Harsh also experienced personal tragedy in the loss of his near and dear ones at critical exams.

Though all the challenges, he was not dissuaded. His dream and sacrificial spirit of his family pushed him to work even more diligently. He would read for 12 hours a day and would work part-time to support his brothers' education. "Dreams are meant to be big and so is the effort you have to make to chase them," he promises.

Harsh's story is not his. It is the story of hundreds of shattered dreams, broken attempts, and still getting up again—humiliated by the power of faith, imagination, and unbreakable will.

What does one do when a fat-checked startup, backed by top VCs and based on a high-impact cause, fails to cut it? IITian Harsh Pokharna, now a CEO, just took to Instagram to talk about the tough lessons he had learned after a health-tech startup in which he had invested shut shop. His brutally frank rehash has since been passed around, not necessarily due to its candor, but because it makes it seem so easy for whoever is attempting to gain entry into India's notoriously recalcitrant health care market.

He mentioned that he had invested in the health-tech venture in 2020. The venture was meant to be a cancer hospital aggregator, with an online platform offering patients the amenity to look for treatment options, consult oncologists online, and make a decision on where to get treated. With more than $7 million in investors on board and 25,000+ monthly users and more than 1,000 unique cancer patient leads as organic growth, the start-up had all the makings of a high-growth business. But even with these figures, it was unable to succeed. "We really believed that hospitals would recognize the value in owning or partnering with a company like this," Pokharna wrote. "But that did not pan out either."

Key takeaways that he learned

Pokharna states that the failure was not a result of the absence of vision or execution—it was structural reality in Indian healthcare. In his post, he enumerated three main takeaways that founders (and investors) should remember:

- Hospitals have all the negotiating power

To Harsh, aggregator websites are wonderful on paper but end up being entirely at the mercy of hospitals. They hold payments outstanding, ignore contracts, and consume any margin on compliance and collection fees. Hospitals do not need middlemen at all.

Digital-only does not work (yet)

The Indian consumer will not pay for healthcare services online, says Harsh. Online technologies are great at generation but do not know how to run a business.

Offline is required—and costly

Indian customers still value offline bookings and brick-and-mortar centres. But offline infrastructure is a Hercules task. It takes 12–24 months for a centre to breakeven and has massive initial expenses, states Pokharna. If a startup lacks the ability to make offline investments at scale, it is stuck.

His takeaway of the day?

For Pokharna, the take-away lesson is straightforward but ominous: healthcare startups wishing to be aggregators tread a thin edge. Without influencers and differentiators, they will be feeble middlemen—with zero margins, no survival, and no respite. He warned that building an aggregator-only firm in Indian healthcare is a gambler's offer. Unless there are smart solutions to the structural ills in the sector, founders will be dead certain to fail.

As Pokharna himself would categorically mention, it might be a good pitch deck, but beware lest it be business suicide.

The tale of an extremely well-educated individual turned food delivery rider in China has become a flashpoint, with the country embroiled in a debate concerning the jobs market in China and the degree to which educational qualifications count.

On Chinese social media, 39-year-old Ding Yuanzhao was called "the best-educated food delivery worker" after it was revealed that he is an alumnus of some of the world's most renowned universities, including Oxford University.

A man from the southeastern province of Fujian, Ding began his academic pursuit when he had nearly 700 out of a maximum of 750 marks in China's high-stakes college entrance examination, Gaokao, in 2004. That earned him admission into Tsinghua University, and he graduated with a degree in chemistry, South China Morning Post quoted news portal 163.com as saying.

He then went on to take a Master's degree in energy engineering at Peking University and a PhD in biology at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. His education did not end there as he also took a Master's degree in biodiversity at the UK's University of Oxford.

Prior to changing his career path, Ding was also a postdoctoral researcher at the National University of Singapore. However, when his contract ended in March 2024, he was not able to be employed even after attending over 10 job interviews. 

Due to his double commitments, Ding became a food delivery rider in Singapore where he made about SG$700 (about Rs 46,859) per week cycling for 10 hours a day.

"It's a secure job. You can feed your family from the income. If you struggle, you will make it. It's not bad work," Ding said in a social media post, the article said.

Also, he added a personal incentive to his new regimen: "One benefit of food delivery is that you can get your exercise in too."

A committed marathon runner and believer in staying optimistic, Ding had these words of advice to share: "If you have not had good results, do not be disheartened or demoralized. If you have performed well, remember that not much of people's work contributes significantly to the larger scheme of things."

Ding Yuanzhao, meanwhile, has returned to China and is a food delivery person for Meituan in Beijing.

I am an undergraduate student in the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering's bioengineering stream at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi. I belong to Lucknow but my academic life started in Kanpur, where I studied up to Class 10 in KDMA International. After that, I did Class 12 from Lucknow Public School.

As a kid, biology would be so interesting to me – perhaps it's because my father was a veterinary doctor. Observing him in the field would always leave me yearning for the science of life sciences, while Data Science and Artificial Intelligence during the initial half of my JEE preparation led to the vision of combining biology with computation. All of which necessitated the career of Bioengineering that I am fortunate to be seeking presently at IIT Mandi.

I attempted JEE Main and JEE Advanced for the first time right after Class 12 in 2021, but the result was not as I had envisioned. I thus lost a year and appeared for JEE in 2022. Abandoned for a year, I self-studied through online study material, traditional books, and mock tests. It was not easy – we all forfeit social life, birthdays, celebrations, even hobbies. But now I tell wannabes not to miss everything. These days will never return. The secret is balance. Success is good, but so is the journey. Don't lose your head in pursuit of your dreams.

Living in a hostel at IIT Mandi during November 2022 was my first-ever experience staying away from home. I did miss my home food, old friends, and my little small sister for whom I am immensely fond in the initial phase. But then all of that was thrown out of the window when I met my gang here, my friends such as Ayush, Aryan, Vishal, Dhruv, Harsh, Vivek, Vibhu, and Shreyansh. My first semester was one of the closest experiences of my life – late night project making, hackathons, competitions, and laughter with them.

Campus life here is different. It's not because it's in the heart of the Himalayas, but it's the students who create that difference. Peer group that you have in an IIT motivates you a million times. If your boy doesn't go for an internship, course, or competition, you feel like saying, 'Hey, perhaps I can do it too.'

Outside of school, I was involved in a couple of clubs – drama, design, Sysadmin, and Kamand Bioengineering Club. The clubs introduced me to something that I otherwise wouldn't have done and helped mature me. School life and club life were difficult to balance out, but the environment here compels you to learn to multitask time and challenge yourself.

The personnel at this school is also highly collaborative. One of my most memorable experiences is when our Japanese teacher participated in a student-arranged 'Glow in the Dark' paint-painting session with us. That role-reversal activity, where we were teachers and she was the student, was one I could never forget. One of the experiences that occurred to my memory with vividness was when I had lost direction on my way to the campus bus and one of the instructors guided me to the academic block – it was just such a frivolous experience, but it was obviously indicative of the teachers' welcome and hospitality.

My experience at IIT has changed me intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. I learned to be persistent, manage time well, lead, and work in teams. But above all, I understood that everybody is lost.

It's at times as if you're the sole person who's lost your plan, but we're all searching for it. So check yourself every now and then if you're doing something you love. If you come up with a 'kind of yes,' then keep going. Try everything out – because you don't want to graduate college with a pinch of regret.

During my second year, I participated in our college team to Dramatics Club 'Nukkad Natak' at Inter IIT Cultural Meet and received second-best scores. Later, I headed our delegation with team management, logistics, and leadership skills under a stressful but enjoyable setup.

My routine comprises morning classes, class and lab assignments, and assignments. I spend my evenings with friends, clubbing, or hiking. I am not into any sport but yes, watch anime and movies, and hike on the picturesque surrounding hills. We take over the Village Square and hostel rooms, play table tennis or foosball, and eat at canteens in the campus. Siddu, a Himachal local dish, is my binge food here.

I finance my own living costs partly by teaching assistantships and partly by allowance from my parents. And while I adore the peace of our hilltop campus, I miss city life – shopping malls, cinema, and amusement parks.

In the future, I see myself doing more studying, perhaps in Computational Biology, Genomics, or Neuroscience.

The cuisine, history, and culture of Lucknow are very close to my heart – and yes, I do miss them. But above all, I miss midnight food finds with my sister. But all said and done, I would say that this IIT Mandi experience has been an experience of personal development, exploration, and life-long friendships.

School music has always equaled one: performance. School choirs, tabla competitions, and day dances every year. All worthwhile, certainly, but this model accomplishes nothing to engage music's whole spectrum for developing rounded, emotionally well-adjusted, and intelligent human beings. Time to imagine music education differently—no longer as a special talent subject but as a daily life skill with benefits extending far, far beyond the stage.

"Students today are subjected to more academic pressures, tech-enabled distractions, and more mental illness than ever. Amid it all, music is not a club after school—it's an anchor," says a former AIR radio artist Krishna Chakraborty. As an academician and music teacher she explained, "Education research and neuroscience studies continue to confirm what musicians have known for ages: that music builds better brains. I make my students start to listen so that they can prepare their ears first."

 An innovative study in The Journal of Neuroscience by the University of Zürich found children who learn to play a musical instrument have much higher brain connectivity—specifically parts responsible for speech, memory, and control. Even more surprising was finding the psychological benefit still exists when the child does not continue the music into adulthood. "The sooner the musicians started learning music, the larger the connectivities," said one researcher, Professor Simon Leipold.

Meanwhile, hipness to become coding kids is neurologically bad. Coding is not necessarily going to build math or language skill, per a 2020 study by MIT. "Computer code seems to be some kind of entity unto itself," the study found. Coding can lead to a career, but music reorganizes brain activity for life.

"Music lessons are not recitals and competitions all the time. Playing an instrument is learning self-discipline, patience, and concentration," said Radio artist from Goa Shakuntala Bharne. Learning from listening to the music actually played has the power to promote watchfulness and empathy. Singer Bharne emphasized, "They're not peripheral advantages—those are survival skills."

"There has been evidence to show music as a natural mood stabilizer. To de-puff stress prior to examination, to rebuild resilience against burnout for students, or to bring people together by group music therapy, music is just good medicine" Chakraborty said.

There have to be lessons in music early on in life at the ages of when children are progressing quickly in order to gain motor skills, language, and emotional maturity. "Nursery rhymes being sung, clapping rhythms, and doing simple melodies lead routes in the brain to form literacy and numeracy," Chakraborty emphasized.

But music can't stop after elementary school. Indeed, music is perhaps most needed when students are teenagers and young adults when they need music most. For homework-carrying college students with internships and crises of identity, music can be a sanctuary—a moment of peace, an outburst of fantasy, a connection to others and to themselves.

Dheeme Dheeme singer Shashaa Tirupati spoke to Edinbox scribe Nibedita and said, "I wouldn’t be surprised if music not only develops the mind technically, but also areas dealing with emotional IQ, psychological healing and memory.

"After all, musicians and listeners often experience all of this deeply while performing or engaging with specific styles and genres of music," said the Indian-Canadian playback singer.

Placing music in college doesn't mean that all colleges need a full-fledged music department. Minor adjustments like music appreciation electives, student choruses and bands, or incorporating music into mindfulness projects can be the catalyst of revolution.

Music does not have to stand alone. Interdisciplinary learning provides an opportunity for creative expression. A Math course in learning rhythm and pattern through the use of percussion. Or a History course in analyzing Freedom Movement protest song. Music can even have application in leadership skills and teambuilding in Management courses, or emotional intelligence in Teacher Training courses.

They are the rebels of this revolution who value the higher potential of music. They are not music teachers, but question raisers, relationship creators, and mind builders.

Indian colleges and universities are best positioned to catalyze this revolution. With the National Education Policy (NEP) changing gears towards holistic growth, learning music is best positioned to get its niche in its modular, multi-disciplinary vision of education.

Design students can take cues from ragas. Literary students can learn about poetry of lyrics in the folk ballad. Engineering students can jam to reduce stress and stay mentally alert. Even open-mic sessions or casual campus jamming could be all about student well-being and student solidarity.

We are on the verge of an un-education revolution. Music is no longer a cultural nicety, or talent show filler—it is intellectual gruel. It makes a more emotionally intelligent child, toughens memory, assists mental health, and constructs concentration. And you don't have to be Mozart to enjoy it. Any kid, any student, any adult can.".

With the age of artificial intelligence upon us, maybe today is the day we make space for emotional intelligence too—and music takes the lead, naturally. If we truly want our children to be smarter, stronger, and better adjusted, maybe the answer isn't the next programming class—but the next music studio.

"I wished to study school final year Arts subjects and wanted to do UPSC. But my life has changed now after I took biology as advised by my sister," said Mahesh Kumar (18), from Rajasthan's Hanumangarh district, who topped the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) this year.

Mahesh, a student of a prominent coaching academy in Sikar, secured the first rank in the test with 99.99% on Saturday. "It was my first attempt. I started preparing for the test in 2022 but was too young to attempt it. Though I had expected something nice, never did I imagine myself topping the nation," Mahesh responded.

Mahesh would study 6 to 7 hours daily. "I would study 6 to 7 hours daily. I also cut it short to 4 to 5 hours a month before the exam so that I was tension-free."

Mahesh's parents are government school teachers. "They never put any pressure on me. A week earlier, my mother also visited Sikar and started living with me. I had some problem with Biology in the early days of my coaching. But I improved gradually. Questions were spontaneous this year too. I never imagined that I would be able to top," told Mahesh in a grand-celebration of his coaching academy in Sikar.

Apart from Mahesh, a maximum of three other Rajasthan students - Tany, Soumya Sharma, and Manavendra Rajpurohit also made it to the top 15, as per the NTA website.