Meet the Chennai professor with 150 degrees, and the promise behind his story

For most people, exams are a hurdle to cross and move on from. For Professor VN Parthiban from Chennai, they are a way of life. While his peers were planning careers, he was collecting degrees — not for glory, but to honour a promise to his mother after barely passing his first degree. That promise became a relentless drive: study, apply, sit exams, repeat.

Today, the 60-year-old professor stands surrounded by over 150 degrees, a shelf full of certificates, and an unbroken hunger to learn more.

He’s known locally as the "Repository of Degrees" and the "walking encyclopedia" — nicknames that stick because his CV looks like a small university course list.

The professor appears to hold the unofficial record for the most academic qualifications earned by an individual in the world.

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