Well, seven to eight years back, if you would have bothered to casually stroll into the campus of The Bishops' School, Pune, you would have probably noticed a fat guy, with his pants pulled high above his waist (owing to the orthodox principles of his teachers), wearing round glasses, standing in the assembly line and yawning, weary of having to get up everyday at five in the morning in order to reach school by seven thirty.
Its always difficult, even for the author of an article, to know how a tale will begin or end, but the middle is always fairly clear. So, in this article, I'll take a detour from the usual and start my story from the middle...
Now, there can be no marks for guessing that the person I was talking about was my former version! Yes, that's how I was in school, and even now as I paint the aforesaid portrait of myself in my mind, I cannot help but burst out laughing. An easy going person, without a care in the world, without any tension of either academics or more importantly about how to get himself into proper shape... Yup! There I was, waiting desperately for the Principal to board the podium and get the daily prayers and announcements done with, so that I could just go sit in class, and let the teachers do their daily blabbing. I used to participate actively only in subjects which interested me the most, Maths being the top runner, but most teachers didn't mind that attitude of mine, as I normally (and fortunately), pulled through with one of the top two ranks in my class, albeit by studying intensely a few days before the exams.
At the time I didn't know, or more appropriately, I didn't care about what I was going to do with my life after my 10th standard was over. I was more bothered about going back home and watching my treasured cartoon shows, including Tom & Jerry (which was my favourite at the time), while I had my lunch. Things continued as usual until one day, when I was in 8th standard, my parents brought up the topic of my career, during our breakfast. They turned to me with questioning eyes as I blankly looked back at them with almost half a parantha stuffed in my mouth...
That was the first time in my life when I was forced to think about something a little more important than my daily bread or TV or, in fact, the whole business of attending school everyday, finishing the three terms each year properly, visiting different tourist destinations including domestic wonders ranging from the tea gardens of Ooty to the coasts of western India and from the history of Hyderabad to the ice-capped peaks of Himachal and Sikkim, during the summer vacations, returning and repeating all of this, all over again. I sat quietly for sometime with that yummy buttered parantha melting in my mouth, not knowing exactly what I was expected to think about... But, as usual, my mother, seeing how hapless and clueless I was, came to my rescue and told me something which, at the time, sounded somewhat like IIT - 'G' (actually, as I came to know later, IIT - 'JEE').
THIS WAS THE BEGINNING!!!
This set off a completely new chain of thoughts in my mind, and it was like stepping into an unknown world... The feeling was similar to that when I had seen Jurassic Park for the first time! It still would be two whole years before I would seriously give a second thought to my parents' idea and it wasn't until after my 10th boards exam that I gradually became fully aware of IIT (the Indian Institute of Technology) and the gravity of the exam JEE (Joint Entrance Exam), which needed to be cracked to get into it.
So, here I was, a guy without having any previous knowledge of puzzles, which is known to develop lateral thinking (something also which I came to know during this period itself), and equipped only with the traditional school knowledge, which hardly provides any academic insight required at this level, struggling it out with so many academic heavyweights including previous olympiad gold medalists, to find a place in the so called 'elite society'.
I obviously had a very hard time at the beginning, but it was during this phase of my life when I made some of the best friends anyone could ever have (including past friends who grew closer), who remain the truest of friends to this very day. Leaving the narrow-minded politics and the cut-throat competition of school-life aside, all of us started to help each other in achieving a common goal. We quickly grew and started performing equally well in the tests carried out at our coaching institute. Our maturity and we ourselves grew as time rolled by and it was not long before it was time for D-Day... IIT-JEE 2009, held every year on the second Sunday of April.
We tried to give it to the best of our capabilities, and most of my friends did really well. But as for me, that year was not to be. Whether it was silly mistakes or the lack of ability to handle the final day pressure, I'll never know... The results came and almost all my friends got what they were trying for, what they had given every ounce of their blood and sweat for... They took admission into various IITs and some went to other good institutes like BITS Pilani. As for me, I had qualified JEE but my rank wasn't good enough for getting anything good in any IIT. I was getting some core subject in some NIT through AIEEE. My parents tried to indirectly advise me to take it, trying to convince me that IIT was not the last thing in the world, but isn't that what everyone says if you fail to accomplish something???
Inspite of all this, I had different ideas... I thought and absolutely believed that I deserved better. The close competition given by me to all the top notch students, my praiseworthy results in mock tests couldn't have all gone to waste, could it? It was now that I took another life changing fateful decision based on 70% 'belief' and 30% 'utter guts', and that was, to take a drop and give JEE again! Trust me, this decision is not an easy one to take, unless you are absolutely psyched. I have seen others, who did the same, only to end up with something worse, or something with so little improvement that it doesn't make a major difference other than making you lose one precious year of your career. And all the risks were multiplied by the fact that I had already qualified that exam once...
Anyhow, I convinced my parents and stuck to my decision. I used to study in the morning and hit the gym in the evening to take out my frustration, anger and sadness for JEE 2009 on the dumbells and the barbells! I did this for around 2 months and I'd say, overall it helped me concentrate and focus my energies on my studies, apart from making me physically fit. Then I left the gym to devote my time entirely to my studies. Hoof! All this said, basics revised, concepts strengthened, I was ready for the test once again... But, what can I say, as fate would have it for me, the factors which had plagued me in 2009, also plagued me in 2010. My rank did improve but only by around 2500, which the IIT-JEE concerned people would know is not much.
I knew at the bottom of my heart and had proved time and again, in the past, that I had the 'X'-factor to become an IITian, but I just couldn't understand why I wasn't being able to access my full potential, when it mattered most. Well, as they say, even people with an iron will have their limits... I had broken down, going for walks out on the street at ungodly hours, time and time again... For a few days, I understood, for the first time, the difference between living and just existing... Well, after all this, I couldn't exactly say that 'time is the greatest healer', but a few days later as I finally started coming back to my senses, I glanced through the counselling brochure looking for any glimmer of hope, any silver lining beyond the dark clouds, when my attention was suddenly drawn to IT-BHU...
I researched a bit and found out that BHU was among the best universities in India, with IT-BHU ranked and considered amongst the topmost and oldest IITs in the country and something else which I had never expected to find in my wildest of imaginations! The internet was overflowing with information about the conversion of IT-BHU into an IIT! It was not guaranteed and the bill in question was still being constructed. But here was one of the greatest and oldest institutes in the country which had any chance of giving me the only thing I had been dreaming of for three long years!!! Three long years!!!
Well, fast forward to the present... Now, I have been in IT-BHU for over a year, and that fateful bill has already been passed in the Lok Sabha, and is awaiting its final approval by the Rajya Sabha... As Steve Jobs had once mentioned in his famous speech: "Let truth be spoken!"; this is the closest I have ever come to becoming an IITian, but I hope in all likelihood, that this is 'not' the closest I get...
Finally, with the blessings of fate (GOD, energy, karma, destiny, whatever you say), if my dream takes shape, I would say that this epic struggle would come to a very successful ending! Concluding here, many people (including me) believe that I should have cracked IIT-JEE with a better rank, with much greater ease than what is apparent, but let me tell everyone that "Life is not always a 'bed of roses', but sometimes you need to taste the 'bed of thorns' to understand the essence of the roses..."
And about myself, I don't know what I can say or have the right to say, but I can definitely say this:-
I have come from being the "easy-going blob" in school to becoming the "The Fighter Within" in (I)IT-BHU, Varanasi!!!...
BE THE FORCE !!!...
