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MP Board 2017 toppers: Meet the 3 Bundelkhand Braves who battled drought, poverty and triumphed
Three toppers of the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE), Class 12 exams, want to become IAS officers, scientists and agriculturists to help farmers
Bhopal: Grit, will and determination, not just hard work, got three students to the top of the merit list in the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education (MPBSE), Class 12, the results of which were declared on Friday. Unlike others, whose problems could be just limited to completing revision of lessons before exams, these students have had to battle poverty in the harsh living conditions of the drought-prone Bundelkhand region.
Sanyam Jain of Tikamgarh is the overall topper who also scored the highest in the Class 12 science-math stream while Nitin Khare of Tikamgarh and Sandeep Patel of Damoh both topped the agriculture stream.
Someone who also cleared JEE Mains recently, Jain’s studies were disturbed when his family had to move from Vidisha to Tikamgarh because of a prolonged drought. He had to leave his private school where he was studying after class 10.
Anil, Sanyam’s father, told this correspondent that he worked in a grocery shop in Vidisha but did not earn enough to sustain the family and hence had to return to his home town. Even now, however, finances are tight and the fact that he has to look after the studies of his other two children, a son and a daughter, have not made things easier. “When I didn’t have enough money to bear the expenses of his (Sanyam’s) studies in his school I could have hardly afforded his expensive coaching in a place like Kota for the joint entrance examination (JEE) for admission to an IIT,” Anil said.
The son convinced his father that he would study in a government school and prepare for JEE on his own with the help of his teachers in Tikamgarh.
Talking to HT, Sanyam said, “I assured my parents that I would manage my studies. My school teachers helped me in studies and in clearing all my doubts. Self-studies and school helped me clear JEE mains and now also secure the highest marks in Class 12.” Now he wants to join the civil services, “become an IAS officer so that I am able to resolve all the problems including migration due to job crises, debt and water crises of my region,” he says
Sanyam said he didn’t want any other student to face the kind of problems he had faced.
Khare and Patel have a similar story to tell. The former’s father, Mukut Bihari, is a farmer. For the past many years, he has been witness to the damage the drought has wreaked in Bundelkhand, the crop failure adding to his father’s burdens. Khare wants to become an agriculturist to “teach farmers how to deal with adverse conditions, especially drought, while farming.”
Patel, who is also son of a farmer wants to be a scientist so that he is able to help farmers live a debt free life.
“Drought hit our family hard. My father is debt-ridden. Except farming, my family has no other means of income to make both ends meet. The condition of other farmers’ families is not different from ours. I want to make farming a profitable business. I want to become a scientist to invent new technology for the farming,” said Patel.
