Story of Ranjith R Panathoor: From Night Guard to IIM Professor

The story of Ranjith R Panathoor is currently going viral on Facebook along with a picture of his dilapidated tiled hut covered with a tarpaulin sheet to prevent rainwater from seeping in. 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.

According to Ranjith, everyone should ‘dream well’ and also should fight for their dreams. The journey of 28-year-old Ranjith Ramachandran is very inspiring for all of us to fight adverse circumstances in life. He had to work as a night watchman for their livelihood. Meanwhile, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and is now an Assistant Professor at IIM, Ranchi. 

Ramachandran was working as a night watchman at a BSNL telephone exchange at Panathur in Kasaragod, while he pursued his Economics degree from the St Pious X College in the district. He posted, “I attended college during daytime and worked at the telephone exchange at night”.

Graduating with honors, he got into IIT, Madras, where he found it difficult to study as he knew only Malayalam. Disappointed by this, he decided to quit the Ph.D. program but was persuaded by his guide Dr. Subhash to not to do so.

He wrote, “I decided to fight and realize my dream”. Fight he did and earned his doctorate last year. For the last two months, he was an Assistant Professor at Christ University, Bengaluru. Ramachandran told the media, “I never thought the post would go viral. I posted my life story, hoping that it would inspire a few others. I want everyone to dream good and fight for their dreams. I want other people to get inspired from this and find success”. He recalled in his post that he nearly gave up his school education due to financial hardships. His father is a tailor and his mother, a daily wage worker under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

The Finance Minister also praised Ramachandran in his post, saying, “From the moment he felt he was defeated, he turned his life and achieved success and it's an inspiration to everyone. We have before us the life stories of great personalities, including K R Narayanan, who attained success with extraordinary willpower”. He added, “The lives of people like Ranjith, who refuse to get discouraged due to various crisis and use education as a weapon to overcome social and economic backwardness, are an inspiration to all”.

Personally speaking, the journey of Ranjith R Panathoor inspired me a lot and I hope you will also get motivated by his remarkable story. That’s why everyone should ‘Never Give Up’ in their life and keep trying to achieve the aspired aim of life.