Atul Kumar, a horse-mule handler from Uttarakhand's Rudraprayag, cracked IIT-JAM with AIR 649 without any coaching and will pursue MSc Mathematics at IIT Madras. He began preparing in July 2024 after returning from Kedarnath and studied consistently till January. "I was working in June- there was no network, and we lived in tents, so studying wasn't possible," he said.