I passed IIT JEE. Wow, that was considered a great achievement. I realized that I was a great boy. All over Control Blocks, Railway Colony, Bilaspur-495004, there was noise, which was music to my ears and cacophony to Nageshwar Rao's. But who cares, apun ki to nikal padee...so I thought.
I ran to tell my Mom. She started crying - ab baccha door chala jaayega. But kya karne ka? This is life. Have to move out to become something.
My teacher Bannerjee Sir...Maths teacher...great teacher. Hello Bilaspur TV Channel people came to his house to take interviews of his students who had cracked the IIT JEE. Each one of us, the future IITians, had to speak for 2 minutes...We got instructions - tell your name, your JEE rank and how many hours per day you studied for IIT JEE. My face was like a shuddering smiley each time I heard guys say that they used to study 15-16 hours a day. I wanted to be truthful...I was a good boy even in those days...I said I used to study for 6 hours, and then went on to emphasize that quality of study matters more than quantity. I was so happy. I spoke a lot and was sure that I'd steal the show when it would be telecasted. Those useless TV channell guys cut all my words of wisdom.
But then, there are places like Bhilai where scores of guys clear IIT JEE every year, and none of them gets even 20% the importance that I got.
The councelling was interesting. My councelling (AIR 1627) was on the 2nd day. I went with my Mummy, Daddy and Sister. WoW, what a day that was! All over the IIT campus, there were guys and very few gals roming around with their parents. I was a seedha-saada bhola-bhala baccha. Like most parents of guys of my type, my parents were worried a lot about me. "How is this stupid guy going to live alone"...And looking at those guys who were all so confident, I didn't quite disagree with my parents. I went close to a group of guys talking about their plans post IIT. One guy said, "mostly MS!". I was taken aback. I hadn't even heard about MS and those guys knew that they wanted to do an MS after they graduated from IIT. Each passing moment consolidated my feeling that IIT was not the place for me. But then, who says no to IIT!
The councelling process was simple and systematic. Write your preferences(ex - "IITB-Engineering Physics-BTech" etc.) in an order and you will be allotted the first one found vacant at your rank. Without getting into details, lemme tell you that I finally got a seat in Civil Engineering (BTech) IIT Bombay.
And on the 17th of July 2000, I set out for Mumbai with my Dad to join Bharatiya Praudyogiki Sansthan to become an Engineer with an IIT Stamp!
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