Viral IIT Bombay graduate who let go of US job for parents is fake; real Vivek Sharma calls out ‘fabricated stories’

The viral story about an IIT Bombay graduate, who allegedly gave up a lucrative job in the US and now runs a grocery shop in his hometown to be closer to his parents, is fake.

The viral X post, shared by “Vikas Alwys”, featured a picture of the viral techie in a grocery store and a carefully woven story about him.

The viral post introduced “Vivek Sharma” — a “B.Tech Computer Science gold medalist from IIT Bombay” and claimed that he had “left a $240,000-a-year ( ₹2.9 crore) US job to run a small grocery store beneath his house and take care of his parents by staying close to them.”

Sharma, the X account claimed, came from “a simple lower-middle-class family in Kanpur,” and his parents used the last of their savings and sold their gold for his Kota coaching and admissions.

“Their savings were used, jewellery was sold, and every rupee was carefully managed so that Vivek could study in Kota and later get into IIT Bombay,” it read.

However, Vikas wrote, just when Vivek “received a dream job offer from a San Francisco-based startup with a package worth nearly $240,000 per year,” his parent fell ill.

“His father suffered a heart attack, and his mother was diagnosed with cancer. He chose to sacrifice his career,” he claimed, adding that the techie now runs a grocery store. “He also teaches coding to underprivileged children.”

Vikas concluded his perfect social media story with a touching line from the man himself — “Vivek says, ‘My parents are my biggest company’.”

The story was soon making headlines — the Internet called him the “perfect son,” who put “family over fortune”.

Real Vivek Sharma calls out ‘fabricated stories’

After the X post went viral, the real Vivek Sharma, who actually attended IIT Bombay, called out the story as “false and misleading”.

The real Vivek commented on the original LinkedIn post by Dr Dilip Gosai, which first shared the false story, and said, “This story is completely false and misleading. Some people are misusing my photo to spread fake rumours and post fabricated stories about me on different social media platforms.”

“Kindly do not believe or share such false information. Please verify facts before spreading anything. Thank you,” he urged the netizens.

The post behind the viral story

Over a month ago, Dr Gosai shared the fake story of Vivek Sharma on LinkedIn. He heavily edited the post after being called out for sharing a fictional account.

However, the comments section still gives a glimpse of his original posted.

Gosai had claimed that Vivek joined IIT Bombay in the year 2012 and had a JEE rank of 147. However, Google search showed that in 2012, no one named Vivek Sharma appeared in the JEE rankings.

He then admitted that the persona of Vivek Sharma was made up to “inspire” people.

“Vivek Sharma is a fictional persona created for an inspirational career narrative highlighting human-centered leadership and family responsibility,” he acknowledged.

Fake photo

Gosai's fake inspirational story had gone viral before he edited the post and removed all references to “Vivek Sharma” and so was the picture he used. Every social media user took it for granted that the picture of the man in the grocery store was the techie who stayed behind for his parents.

However, Hindustan Times (HT) found that the picture shared alongside the viral post is actually that of Sumit Gorai. It was picked up from a YouTube video that Gorai had shared two years ago.