From Watchman to IIM Professor

This is a real life story of an IIM Ranchi Professor named Ranjith Ramachandran. His father is a tailor and mother, a daily wage worker under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

At one stage he nearly gave up studies due to financial hardships. He used to work as an watchman at the BSNL telephone exchange at night at Panathur in Kasaragod, while he pursued his Economics degree from Pious Xth College in the district.

Graduating with honours, he got into IIT, Madras, where he found it difficult to study as he knew only Malayalam. Despondent, he decided to quit the PhD programme, but was persuaded by his guide Dr Subhash not to do so.

 He tried hard and earned his doctorate last year. For the last two months, he was an Assistant Professor at Christ University, Bengaluru. After that he got job in IIM Ranchi as an assistant professor.

His inspirational April 9 post in which he shared his story, went viral, garnering over 37,000 likes. Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac also took to Facebook to congratulate Ramachandran, who goes by the name ''Ranjith R Panathoor'' on social media, saying he is a source of inspiration to everyone.