How a news paper delivery boy became a top class Yahoo executive

Dear Readers,

Welcome back !! Hope you had a great day.

I am dedicating this article to my High school friend Harsha. He has been a source of constant inspiration to me. We studied together in Vidya Vardhaka high school in Bangalore from eighth to tenth class.

Our school is a semi government aided school. This is one of the most prestigious and well known school in North Bangalore. This is one of the schools where you can get admission purely on the basis of merit. There are no management seats.

Students in Bangalore have board exams in seventh class. Students above ninety percent marks push their luck to get into this school. So, the competition is very tough. In short, our class was full of the meritorious students all across Bangalore. And, you will be surprised to know that my fees for entire three years of high school was less than ten thousand rupees (roughly two hundred dollars).

Harsha was a brilliant guy with a very neat hand writing. He was the epitome of hard work. He used to work as a news paper delivery boy in the morning. And, in the evening after finishing school he used to work in his dad's small shop. He used to study at night.

I remember once we had internal exams and I was telling him how I had studied till one thirty last night. He casually replied that he normally studies till two thirty every night. After that I never dared to boast anything about studies in front of him :-)

After completing high school, Harsha went on to study Science in a very well known college and went to get a free computer science seat in R V College which is the No 1 ranked college in Karnataka.

He went on to become one of the toppers of VTU university. He was one among the only three candidates to be selected by Yahoo for Internship in 2008. You will remember that 2008 was the worst hit recession year. And, he was the only candidate offered job finally from his college.

He worked successfully with Yahoo before moving on to work with ecommerce giant Flipkart. He has also worked with LinkedIn. And, is currently based in a top company in California.

His exemplary success story proves that nothing is impossible. We can achieve all our dreams provided we are ready to make some great sacrifices and put in a great deal of hard work. As they say, there is no substitute for hard work.

I wish you all the good luck in your pursuits for success and happiness.

With Love,
Gunjan.