The day he got the news that would transform his life, Dharmendra Modha, 17, was supervising a team of laborers scraping paint off iron chairs at a local Mumbai hospital. He felt happy to have the position, which promised steady pay and security — the most a poor teen from Mumbai could realistically aspire to in 1986. Modhas mother sent word to the job site shortly after lunch: The results from the statewide university entrance exams had come in. There appeared to be some sort of mistake, because a perplexing telegram had arrived at the house.
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