Jaipur: When polio crippled Krishna Kumar as a child, he could not go to school till his younger brother, Basant, was old enough to be enrolled along with him.





Their family was so poor that they could not even buy Krishna braces or crutches, forcing Basant to carry his brother on his back to school.

Krishna, now 19, and Basant have since stood for each other and now cracked the JEE (Advanced) together after three years of coaching in Kota.





The differently-abled has bagged the 38th all-India rank in the OBC Persons with Disability category. Basant has secured the 3,675th rank in the OBC category.







The two have overcome other odds as well. Their village, Paroria, on the banks of the Bagmati river in Bihar's Samastipur would invariably get flooded during the monsoon, damaging crops and leaving their family of

seven with very little to eat. A good square meal was a luxury the family could not afford.



 

Krishna said he was the fourth-born of their daily-wager parents and polio crippled him when he was just over-a-year-old. "There was nobody in the family who could pick me up and drop me off, so my brother Basant came as a blessing," he said.





The two started school together, but their real test came when they finished Class VIII. "We were admitted to a senior secondary school about 10km from our village. My father bought a second-hand bicycle for me, and I took my brother along on it," said Basant.





The two always outshined their classmates, which encouraged them to take IIT coaching classes. "Initially, the plan was for only me to come to Kota, but I knew my brother was interested too, so I urged my parents to send us both," Basant said.





Moving to Kota for coaching, over 1,400km away, in 2013 was a daunting idea for the two as they had never travelled so far before.





Two years later, they returned home as their father could no longer afford their stay in Kota. "We returned dismayed...our hopes were dashed," said Krishna. But some generous villagers offered to fund their studies and convinced their father to send them back.







The two now hope they will get the same IIT and continue to support each other.