Cut-off Marks for Success

An old school friend of mine walks into my home after 9 long years. He was welcomed by a fresh, audacious IITian (then) with a formal greeting. This audacity of mine could not last long when I heard he's a team leader in a software company. 

Yes, I was amazed. I guess there's nothing special about being a Team Leader in a software company. If you ever go to Bangalore, try throwing a stone randomly anywhere I bet you there's more than 99% probability that it hits a software engineer. 

So, what is so special about my friend?

He was being promoted as a Team leader just one month before we met. Four years ago he got hired by a Mumbai based software company only by looking at his capability and skills on some project which he was just exhibiting.   

• He was the last bench party throughout the school days. 
• Struggled even to get 40 marks in any subjects. 
• Many such students had either lost their interest in academics because of negative attitude showed towards them by parents, teachers and apparently, we or they were not interested in academics in any way - at this point of time, it is tough to predict. But many such friends of mine did not see the blackboard after X again in their life.  
• They were good at sports. At the front when it comes to fighting. They were the ones who are responsible for whatever mishaps happened in school. 

As a society, we always saw them as underdogs and kept them in a negative environment. 

In simple words, all of us considered them as useless creatures. 

With a surprise on the face, I asked him how did this happen? (I didn't ask him how did he do it?)

He started his story with a hopeful smile, his family had to close down their small business all of a sudden due to some unavoidable reasons. As a lower-middle-class family, they neither knew any other skills or formal education to get a job, nor they had a substance to start a new business. In a matter of a week, the struggle began even for a one time meal. 

He had no time at all to enjoy the illness of elites - The Depression. 

Medicine for depression - The Alcohol, Cigarettes, or Drugs.  

Life even did not give him a breathing time to blame God and curse his own life. 

He started to collect SIM cards first, then drove auto and a few other small jobs like this. 

He literally became Mr Yes for everything, earning every penny equalled a meal to him. Mr Yes continued this for some months. Somehow he thought learning computer basics would fetch some more earnings, so began his basic computer class in the evening. 

Likewise, Mr Yes began his IT career as a computer operator and successfully landed as coder after very few years. Looking at his coding skills a company hired him with a small salary and today he is a team leader. 

35/100 may be just a cut-off mark to cross a tiny stream called academic exam. 

I don't think even these hard-earned 35 marks ever helped anyone in his/her struggle towards success. 

Inspiration brings change in one's life when it strikes very hard on our belief system and works when we don't even have time to think of our worst situation. 

We're always told and taught to have role models like Dr Kalam, Mahatma Gandhi, Mr Narayan Murhy, Mr Ajim Premji and many. We read them, we hear about them in TVs or many people talk about them.

What is the problem in having an inspiration or role models who are our own friends, colleagues or maybe relatives?

Do we need any other role models for us other than our own friends? Why don't we ever talk about them? Why don't we acknowledge them? 

Topper may remain at the top, but he jumped to the topmost from the bottom most.