Shubham Sabar was still at the construction site on June 14 in Bengaluru when the call came. It was peak work time, and he had a few more hours of hard work to go, but the call melted away the weariness and distress.
It was from a teacher back in Odisha, telling him that he had cracked the National Eligibility Entrance Test-UG (NEET).
“I couldn’t hold back my tears. I told my parents I’m going to be a doctor,” Sabar said. “Then I informed my contractor I intended to take back whatever savings I have.”
Earlier this week, the 19-year-old tribal man secured admission at the Medical College and Hospital in Odisha’s Berhampur. He had secured the 18,212th rank in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category in his first attempt.
When he completes his course, Sabar will be the first doctor from his panchayat in four years.
Son of a small-time farmer from Mudulidhiah village in Odisha’s Khurda district, Sabar is the oldest of four siblings. Life was hard and finances were always tight: a little had to go a long way, a fact that he never forgot.
“I was very aware of our financial condition. My parents owned a small patch of land and worked hard to feed us. But I was determined to continue my study and to do something in life,” he said.
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When he scored 84 percent in Class 10, his teachers suggested that he complete Classes 11 and 12 At BJB College in Bhubaneswar. There, he studied on his own for the first year but took up maths and chemistry tuitions in the second, scoring 64 percent in Class 12 board examinations.
It was during this time that he decided he wanted to be a doctor, taking up coaching at a centre in Berhampur for NEET. Once he took his NEET exams, he left for Bengaluru.
“I worked there for around three months and managed to save some money. Part of this I used to pay for the coaching that I took and part for my MBBS admission,” he said.
