Few pages from the past

Growing up...

I was blessed with a stable family. My father is an employee of SBI. A man of principles who has survived tonnes of hardships. Forever busy chasing perfection, surviving office politics, and stuck in his worries for my grandparent's health, often he was not there for me when I needed him, tough from outside and soft from inside, he has his own ways of loving me and my mom. Took me a long time, to be honest, more than a decade to realize that whatever he does has only one purpose, adding to my comforts. My mother is a very kind woman who knows the value of education and has ensured to put me on the right path despite my father's absence.

I was taught to stay ahead of the competition from a very young age. My mother tutored me, and I was clear with the four fundamental operations of mathematics,  tables till 20, and basic paragraph writing in Hindi and English before I entered the first standard. When my father got transferred, we moved to Jabalpur, the city closest to my heart. Thanks to my mother's efforts getting admission to the topmost school was a cakewalk. School was pretty easy and boring for me until I met a retired engineer who is as important to me as my father. He agreed to be my tutor, but on one condition that he will not teach me things that were confined to the syllabus as he found it annoying, perfect!

My grades in school were always good, I never scored less than 93 percent, and almost every time I either used to get full or the highest marks in maths. High on these meaningless numbers, I never took exams or classes seriously. I completed stuff just for the sake of getting teachers off my head and avoiding my parent's lecture. 

After a point in my life, I completely stopped studying any other subject apart from maths, and day by day, I was growing overconfident. In school, I always felt that the people around me were inferior, and I am some gifted genius. In 2008 someone in my family cleared IIT-JEE, and the all India topper of this exam hailed from the same city as I do, Patna. Seeing the celebrity level treatment of these toppers, I was inquisitive about this hype. After knowing everything about these heavens called IITs, I knew that I had to reach there. The sole purpose of my life was to get into one. I was breathing for the sake of getting into an IIT. When wifi came to my house, the first thing I searched was the ranking of various IITs. Obsession was so much that they were the only things I talked about. For me, the scenario of failing in IIT-JEE never existed.

Tenth boards were no big deal since CBSE made scoring 10 CGPA  a walk in the park. Finally, class 10 ended, and I entered high school. Ready to embark on the journey of JEE preparations.

A toad enjoying life in a bathtub was about to dive in the ocean, thinking that he can rule the currents...