India, July 17 -- Aryan Gupta, 17, the Ludhiana lad who topped the NEET UG-2026, scoring 715 out of 720 marks on Thursday night, comes from a family with more than 10 doctors, making the medical profession a natural choice.

However, his path to all-India rank 1 was uniquely gruelling. In his initial NEET attempt on May 3, he scored 696 marks, but exam that was eventually cancelled. "After studying continuously for two years, when you get to know that the exam has been cancelled, opening the books once again was difficult. But I looked at my peers for motivation and treated it as a second chance to do better," Aryan said with a smile, admitting "I never expected this rank."

Even as he prepared to take the exam a second time on June 21, A...