Why a 71-YO Retired Professional Sat for NEET Alongside Teen Aspirants |
When 71-year-old Ashok Bahar walked out of his NEET UG 2026 examination centre in Lucknow on 3 May, he looked unlike most candidates around him.
Dressed in a simple kurta-pyjama and carrying a water bottle along with his question paper, Bahar quietly made his way through crowds of students discussing chemistry answers and expected cut-offs.
Soon, videos and photographs of the elderly aspirant began circulating online, with many people wondering what had brought a man in his seventies to one of India’s most competitive entrance examinations.
The answer, it turned out, had very little to do with career ambition. For Bahar, NEET was connected to a promise he had carried for decades.
A dream deferred by life
According to reports, Ashok Bahar is a resident of Chandernagar in Alambagh, Uttar Pradesh. Before retirement, he reportedly worked as a marketing head at Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited and later served with the Ministry of External Affairs. He retired in 2000.
By most conventional standards, Bahar had already lived a successful professional life. He studied at the University of Lucknow and holds both LLB and MBA degrees. Yet despite his accomplishments, one aspiration continued to remain unfinished.
Bahar reportedly promised his mother years ago that he would become a doctor like his father. Coming from a family with nearly 20 doctors, medicine had always been closely woven into his personal history.
But like........