IIT! It was my dream, my life . I am that sort of a girl who would never like to bow or feel inferior in front of any guy. I always used to carry that feminine ego with me. Taking inspiration
from Indira Gandhi, Kiran Bedi and Kalpana Chawla I have always aspired to glorify the female status in the world. I had heard people passing chauvinistic comments that girls are brainless, just good for memorizing. Girls can not apply their head and that’s the reason why they are able to outshine boys in board examinations but are outclasses in Exams like Olympiads and IIT JEE. I wanted to prove them wrong.
I had been a very good student in my school days,was not a topper though. My parents had always supported me. Since I belong to a small town, I was sent outside after my board examination so that I could learn from the best teachers for IIT JEE. Being away from home had some pros and cons on my studies. I could focus much more on my studies than the worldly affairs. But a negative and very big impact was that I started to feel lonely. In due course I came in contact with a boy named Aakash(name changed). He was also there to prepare for IIT JEE. We started having regular study sessions together. Things went fine for few weeks with we both doing really well in our studies. I thought I will achieve my dream. But things changed. Slowly and slowly my loneliness sprouted my feelings towards him. From friends we became very good friends and finally he became my boy friend. We started to spend more and more time together. Our fruitful study sessions started shifting to useless discussions and gossips. IIT JEE which once seemed a very achievable target, became an almost impossible challenge to overcome . Just six months before the exams we decided to break up and concentrate on our studies. But things were not so easy now. I had to prepare for Boards, then the mighty IIT JEE and above all the trauma of break up. Although it was a mutual decision, but I missed him a lot.
Time moved on. I somehow managed to pass the boards but not IIT JEE. YES I FAILED. I know that it was supposed to be a success story. But in IIT JEE there are hundred failures for every 1 success and some of them deserves mention for others to learn from it. Although today I am a successful computer engineer but the fact that I am not an IITian always hurts. When I look back at my life, I wonder how stupid yet how innocent I have been. My story is a message and also a warning to lakhs of students who leave their home with the same dream as I once did and then gets distracted by something or other. Friends never forget the very first reason you left your home for – “TO PREPARE FOR IIT JEE”. Everything else is secondary. Pursue your dream with passion and dedication. Believe me, it really hurts to see all your dreams and aspiration meeting Titanic’s fate.
Good Luck.
By Shifali Arora