Food vendor Tarul Rayan in a screengrab from the viral video
Credit: X/@FI_InvestIndia
Chennai: A PhD student moonlighting as a food vendor to support his family went viral after an encounter with an American vlogger, who was taken aback by his qualifications.
Vlogger Christopher Lewis who was vlogging about his trip to Tamil Nadu found the food cart run by Tarul Rayan on Google Maps and decided to drop by. While chatting, Rayan told him, "If you Google my name, you’ll find my research articles."
Lewis was astonished to find out that Rayan was a PhD student in Biotechnology at SRM University.
The video of the encounter, shared on social media, has since gone viral. While some thanked Lewis for the shout out to a hard-working student, others were impressed by the entrepreneurial drive of Rayan that pushed him to run a food shop while continuing his studies.
"The same youtuber went to Marina beach and ate Corn in a shop. A girl was there helping her mom and doing college.
In Tamil Nadu you can see many students doing part time and helping their parents," one user commented.
Commenting on the 'future of India', one user added that the same is in the micro level entrepreneurship. This will solve the employment challenges in the country.
Another user commented, "Sad to see this guy's knowledge and skills are not being used properly in the society. Happy to see him work cheerfully."