From Night Watchman to IIM Professor-The Incredible Story of Ranjith Ramachandran

Ranjith was born to Ramachandran Naik, who worked as a neighbourhood tailor, and Baby R, who was a daily wage labourer under the rural job guarantee scheme.
From Night Watchman to IIM Professor-The Incredible Story of Ranjith Ramachandran

NEW DELHI: We have heard or read about many inspirational stories of men and women in India who sailed through their tough times and reached new heights.

Such is a story of a 28-year-old watchman turned professor from Kerala who has been in talks recently.

The doctorate in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, took over the Malayalam internet space with a storm after posting his incredible life journey on Facebook.

Ranjith was born to Ramachandran Naik, who worked as a neighborhood tailor, and Baby R, who was a daily wage laborer under the rural job guarantee scheme, at Kelapankayam in Panathur. Read more

The couple, who belongs to the Marathi Scheduled Tribe community, had only studied till Class 5. However, they knew the importance of education and admitted Ranjith to the government-run Model Residential School (MRS) for boys from tribal communities at Vellachal in Pilicode panchayat.

"I was at MRS till Class 10. The government supported all my expenses. So I did not know much about the financial situation at home," he told while speaking to the media. Read more

For higher secondary education, Ranjith joined a government school at Balanthode, where he got interested in economics as a subject.

Post schooling Ranjith joined St Pius X College in Rajapuram to pursue BA in Economics.

This is when he realized it was getting tough for him to take care of himself and this is when he decided to help the family.

Upon seeing a job advertisement calling for a night watchman at the BSNL telephone exchange in Panathur. He applied and got the job.

"I worked as a watchman there for five years — all through my degree and post-graduation days," he said.

Though his salary was Rs 3,500 per month initially, it went up to Rs 8,000 per month in the fifth year. "I studied during the day and worked at night," he said.

Notably, Ranjith topped his college that year.

After completing his post-graduation at the Central University of Kerala in Kasaragod, Ranjith joined the elite IIT-Madras for his PhD.

With the fear of being outnumbered by his fellow mates, he decided to give up on his PhD because he felt "academically inadequate".

However, his guide Dr Subash Sasidharan, an associate professor in the department took him out for lunch for a week and convinced him to fight once before accepting defeat, he said.

After his doctoral degree from IIT Madras, Ranjith joined Christ University, Bangalore for two months and he got a posting at IIM Ranchi.

Kerala Finance Minister and a Doctorate in Economics from the Centre For Development Studies, Dr. Thomas Issac said, "Ranjith is an inspiration and from the moment he felt he was defeated, he turned his life and achieved success.

Meanwhile, his Facebook post turned viral with more than 37,000 likes and Ranjith said, "I never thought that my Facebook post would go this viral, I had posted it to be an inspiration for each and everyone who are fighting with their backs to the wall and I wanted to be an inspiration, nothing more." 

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