There were some things that Dr. Shankar Dey experienced really late in his life, like electricity, for instance. For 13 years, he studied under the flickering flame of a candle. Yet, the struggles continued. He lost his sister to leukaemia when she was eight, and he was only ten years old. His father, a rickshaw-puller couldn't afford her treatment. However, he learned important life lessons from the experiences of her death and the hardships of life from studying under the dull light of the candle.
He learned to focus and put all his attention into the things that mattered. It worked in school because when he couldn't pay for school fees, a few teachers came forward to support him after seeing the extra effort he was putting into every class.
However, he wanted to earn his education on his own merit. He was thrilled when he won the MedEngage Scholarship out of thousands of applications. It was the window of opportunity which boosted his efforts and helped him access technology to prepare for the exams. He said, “I realised that if I did the hard work honestly, kindness would find me from places and faces I didn't know existed. Now, it is time for me to pay this kindness forward. Today, I am Dr. Shankar Dey who has bagged top honours in every subject of the MBBS curriculum, a university topper in the Second professional MBBS and a gold medalist.
Today, he has a YouTube channel where he coaches MBBS students who cannot afford tuition fees like he once couldn’t. He says, “My sister left me long ago, but I still carry her presence with me, and it is my deepest desire to set up a trust for people suffering from debilitating diseases.”