E-Paper
The viral 'Vivek Sharma' IIT Bombay story is fake. Even the photo wasn't his
A fake story about an IIT Bombay graduate giving up a lucrative job offer in the US to run a grocery shop in India is going viral on social media.
A fake story about an IIT Bombay graduate giving up a lucrative job offer in the US to run a grocery shop in India is going viral on social media. The story exploded online after it was shared by an X account called “Vikas Alwys”.
In his X post, Alwys wrote about Vivek Sharma — whom he called a “B.Tech Computer Science gold medalist from IIT Bombay.” Sharma left a $240,000-a-year ( ₹2.9 crore) US job to run a small grocery store beneath his house and take care of his parents by staying close to them, he claimed.
The story of ‘Vivek Sharma’
According to Alwys, who did not provide any source for this information, Vivek Sharma is a computer science graduate from IIT Bombay, one of India’s most prestigious institutes, who hails from a “simple lower-middle-class family in Kanpur”.
He claimed that Sharma’s parents used their savings and sold their gold so he could study at Kota and later secure admission to IIT Bombay. In his final year of IIT, Sharma even received an offer from a US firm with a package worth nearly $240,000 ( ₹2.2 crore).
“Right before joining the US job, tragedy struck. His father suffered a heart attack, and his mother was diagnosed with cancer. He chose to sacrifice his career. Now, he runs a grocery store,” Alwys claimed.
His X post includes a picture of the so-called Vivek Sharma inside a grocery store.
Fake story goes viral
The fake story of Vivek Sharma first appears to have been shared on LinkedIn at least one month ago by Dr Dilip Gosai.
Gosai has now edited his post heavily after being called out for sharing the fictional account. However, the comments section of the post give a glimpse of what he had originally posted.
In his original post, Gosai had claimed that Vivek Sharma joined IIT Bombay in the year 2012 and had a JEE rank of 147. A quick Google search shows that in the year 2012, no one named Vivek Sharma made it to the JEE rankings.
Gosai also admitted that the persona of Vivek Sharma was made up to “inspire” people.
“Vivek Sharma is a fictional persona created for an inspirational career narrative highlighting human-centered leadership and family responsibility,” he acknowledged.
Gosai was criticised for sharing the fake story, with one person named Vivek Sharma, who did actually attend IIT Bombay, writing under his post: “This story is completely false and misleading. Some people are misusing my photo to spread fake rumours and post fabricated stories about me on different social media platforms. Kindly do not believe or share such false information. Please verify facts before spreading anything. Thank you.”
Fake photo used
Although Gosai edited his post later to remove all references to this “Vivek Sharma”, the fake account had by then already spread online.
Several social media users who reposted the story did so with an image of a man standing inside a grocery store. It was implied that this man is Vivek Sharma, who gave up a US job offer to stay with his parents in Kanpur.
However, another Google search reveals that the image actually shows a man named Sumit Gorai. It was picked up from a YouTube video that Gorai had shared two years ago.
Therefore, it is clear that this story of Vivek Sharma is fake, and that no such person exists in real life.
