From a small village to IIT Kharagpur
Class 1st to 5th: studied in a govt. school(Middle School) located in my own village. Used to rank among top 10 in class. Screwed up a couple of times, but was doing well. My father used to teach me. I was not at all a studious guy. I rather spent most of my day playing cricket and other games/sports with my friends. Sometimes rank used to fell down from single digit to double digits.Didn’t care at all. Wasn’t a studious guy. The teachers in school and the residents of my society were so fed-up of me that my parents wanted to send me to a hostel. I used to fight with my brother, Prakash for some silly stuff. Enjoyed life like crazy. Played a lot of games. Broke some people’s heads. Messed up with teachers. Fought with classmates. I arguably had the best childhood.
Class 9st and 10th: school was changed to one of the best schools in our localities. Got to know my position and everything of textbook stuff was bouncing over my head. I started to worry about myself. The responsibility of studying suddenly fell on me. So, I started to live with my maternal uncle Sanjay, he was in his higher secondary in Gopalpur(Nala) where my elder maternal uncle has a small public restaurant. Came to realize that my 'just-don't-care-a-bit-about-anything' childhood is now over. I used to be a leave-me-alone type boy so didn't have many friends. Screwed up 9th and started becoming serious about my studies. Well this time it was my grandfather who made me mugging up 6 to 8 hours a day those textbooks, over and over again, which by the way was way more for 10th. After getting help from many including my maternal uncle Sanjay who used to be my home tutor, I ended up with 86 %, which BTW used to be hell lots of marks though I was not even in my top 5 from my school but I was happy with my performance. And surprisingly till that time, I had no idea what the hell is IIT but I used to dream about being an engineer though.
Class 11st to 12th: I don't know if "doing good in 10th brings a set life ahead or not" but those 86 % of marks did help me in getting myself in JNV Jamtara, which proved a blessing for my dream to IIT. For the first time, I heard about IIT and got to know that IIT is the best institute to fulfill my engineering dream. Learnt that only top 5000 rankers are able to make it old IITs. CBSE curriculum helped a lot (JNV has CBSE curriculum and I don't think I could have made it with JAC board). With the help of many teachers I performed well during class 11th and 12th especially in physics, chemistry, and math, but still, I was not even close to my expected performance and blew up JEE mains.
After screwing up JEE main (not even qualified for JEE Advanced) I was feeling doubtful about myself and was thinking about giving it up. But I was really passionate about it and also heard that Cracking IIT-JEE in the first attempt without even any coaching institute(JEE) was impossible(for someone like me). So I went ahead and gave it one more shot.
Next six month in coaching institute
Got to know that for IITJEE along with hard work you required systematic and planned study.Coaching institute helped a lot.Got in touch with Vikash Sir - the teacher who changed the way I saw Maths. He taught me how to hit Math problems with the most fundamental concepts rather than applying end-results/formulae. I applied his ideas not just in Maths, but also in Chemistry and Physics. This started producing good results and eventually I became extremely serious about JEE preparation.AITS (test series) started. I performed well at the national level, but the scores were low because AITS is extremely tough. Worked like crazy during this period. It was clear by this time that if I don’t screw up JEE and perform as I have been doing in AITS, a good rank is sure.
The JEE and Counseling time: screwed up JEE due to a sudden change in pattern.Got to know that it isn’t just me who screwed up. Relative performance was pretty great.JEE results were announced, AIR 6000 in JEE Advanced 2016.During I was getting IIT-kgp, but my parents were slightly paranoid and they made me fill about 100 choices.
IIT Kgp was the first IIT I had ever set my eyes on. And now I am going to live 500 km away from home, and come with various aspirations about my life in the city and the campus(The campus is astounding! Serene!).
Its been nearly three year. Have made amazing friends, came across a wide spectrum of exceptionally talented people in all fields, had some productive years filled with challenges, witnessed many stand ups, guest lecturer etc and experienced crazy dancing in my first DJ night, to say the very least!