A million dollar dream

Ankur Shanker, like many of you out there, has a dream. To study in a well reputed college abroad. In his case, LSE (London School of Economics).

Ankur got an admit to LSE for the September 2007 session. But, he deferred it to 2008. Because he does not have the 55,000 pounds (or USD $ 100,000 )it would take for his tuition, boarding & lodging.

A Delhi College of Engineering grad (2005 batch) Ankur has some savings from a job as sr business analyst at evalueserve. And yes, he will apply for a scholarship. "Loan is not an option as I don't have collateral," he shrugs.

But Ankur has a 'plan'. He read an article which basically said,"You can earn millions from Adsense" and so he decided to put the theory into practice. Ankur has created a blog called http://milliondollarstory.blogspot.com. His plan is to write 1 short story, everyday, for 180 days.

And he hopes enough of you will come to read the stories, and perhaps click on the ads, earning him cash.

It's a crazy plan. Can it really get you $ 100,000? I have no idea. But one must admire his spirit. His gung-honess. He is an average Joe in the literary sense (engineer, no great past writing experience, has read only a couple of short story collections - Jhumpa Lahiri & Rohinton Mistry).

But he thinks he can do it. And that's where it all begins, doesn't it. The will, the passion, the determination. It comes through when you speak to him. Which I did, before deciding to write about it.

The first story goes up tonight.

On my part, I am giving him this plug and wish him the best of luck in this endeavour. I hope the stories are of interest to readers (failing which the idea will, as well). But regardless of the quality of the stories, I think it's rather inspiring.

It's all about having a dream - and then doing a little something about it! Which is something we all ought to do more often.

More on the project here.

Update: the first story is quite interesting, in a Dilbert sort of way. Of course I did not feel compelled to click on the ads... But hey, it's a decent start!