Feb 9th, 2013.

Despite a huge hue and cry over ‘’Race for Careers’’ today, there’s hardly much motivation for students that drives them for hard work in higher studies. Such an arrangement was, however, recently made at the Headquarters of the Student Islamic Organization of India in New Delhi. SIO, in collaboration with ‘Human Chain’ organised an esteem-setting lecture by noted academic activist Mr. Anand Kumar. Mr. Kumar is renowned for his unique contribution to mathematical studies and for providing near-free super-quality coaching for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance examinations, especially for poor students.

Mr. Kumar’s life, marked with keen interest for mathematics in his childhood and quest for wisdom, can hardly be described in one setting or in a documentary, especially after the decade long academic welfare activities he has been committed to with the support of his family (including his IITian wife, who left her job to join his ‘movement’ for respect and higher education). After the sad demise of his father, he had two options available; first to earn livelihood by joining a job position vacated by his father’s death; and secondly, to continue his craze for mathematics. He chose the latter.

But the path so voluntarily taken up by him was not a cake-walk. There was no chief breadwinner in his family, if he were to only look after his studies. It was his mother then who had to turn into, both a matriarch as well as a provider for the family. She seated herself to make Papad and Mr.Kumar, along with his brother, took up it’s sales (which he did after his tuition hours during the day). At a moment in time, he came in contact with Mr. Shahabuddin, a mathematics teacher who taught mathematics at Patna University. He thus became a guru to Mr. Kumar . Subsequently, some of his research papers got published in the European and American magazines too, and he was all in the press! He even got an admission offer from the University of Cambridge, but he could not take it up due to the financial conditions.

That would have been a crossroad for a weaker heart to lose hope. But Mr. Kumar, thankfully, was not one of them. With his undivided belief in keeping no grudges, he vowed not to let his worthy efforts so far die down. And he was soon up with his plans for sincere commitment to the academic promotion of poor students, something that distinguishes him today in a million or more tutors.

His message – full of patience, respect for all faiths, honesty in deeds and belief in unity drew a great gathering today. For his undivided love for the poor and hardworking – there was no less of love and appreciation that he received from the audience; though the untimely questions that tensed the emotions owing to the paucity of time were typically a of bog-down. In a much appealing way no different than that of a sage, he motivated each and every student to think of society and return better yields for the same. “Every effort needs time to prosper and requires continuous courage, so do not be tired and give up,” he said. He urged the students to make positive goals and commit to them.

Mr. Kumar also shared with the gathering, many inspirational stories of numerous poor students who cleared IIT/JEE entrance examinations under his teaching and are presently enjoying better job positions in well-known Multi-National Companies. One such story was of Santosh who hailed from a poor family but is now serving as a professor in a European country. After qualifying for the IIT, Santosh was a hot cake for media and his success story was published in American journals as well. Nonetheless, Mr. Anand surprised many when said he does not accept any donation to run his coaching center.

‘Super-30’ was established in 2002 and enrolls only 30 students in an year. Since then it has trained a total of 330 students, 281 of whom have cleared IIT entrance examinations. Amazingly, at least three times in the past years, all the 30 of his students of the batch were able to secure a seat each in the prestigious IITs!