This article is based on true facts and is aimed at bringing out some learnings from my own mistakes.
From kindergarten to class 8, I studied in six different schools. Then, I lost my father in class 8. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to lift my family out of financial misery. The only way I could see out was by studying hard.
My destiny took me to a fairly “average” Bihar Board school—St. Joseph High School in Ranchi. By the time I got admission in class 9, the academic session had already progressed by a few months, and the half-yearly exams were right around the corner. I secured 2nd rank in the class. Everyone noticed.
My classmates immediately warned me that the topper was invincible, having held rank 1 for years. But I knew he wouldn’t hold that spot after the next terminal exams three months away. And I did it. After that, in every single exam up to the class 10 boards, the gap between our scores kept widening. He came from a well-to-do family and had tuitions; I had none.
It wasn’t that the other boy was less bright than me. It was sheer junoon—an absolute obsession—that made me unstoppable. I gathered books from three different publication houses for every subject, some borrowed and some purchased. I researched them all and compiled my own comprehensive notes. To paint a picture of the workload: we had 15 papers in every exam (2 Hindi, 2 English, 2 Sanskrit, 2 Economics, 2 Mathematics, 1 History & Civics, 1 Geography, and 1 each in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology) totalling 900 marks, with the board exams drawing from both the class 9 and class 10 syllabi.
I had always enjoyed essay writing and won local competitions. I was also naturally gifted in mathematics, having finished class 10 trigonometry back in class 7. While other students struggled with math, I had plenty of time to deeply explore subjects like Hindi and Economics.
Exam after exam, my scores climbed, and my teachers found it nearly impossible to deduct marks. Honestly, they had never seen a student like me in their entire careers. All of them were certain I was the next board topper. They even said it openly. Yet, there was one piece of advice from a teacher who pulled me aside one day: “Thoda kam likho” (Write a bit less). In the pre-board exams, I scored 857 out of 900—an astronomical score for those times in the Bihar Board, where traditional Board toppers maxed out around 810 to 820.
The board exams posed no challenge and went off smoothly. I knew I was going to top. I made no mistakes across all 15 papers. I religiously read the newspapers every day for updates on the results, but Bihar was in the grip of severe floods, and reports frequently surfaced of entire bundles of answer sheets getting washed away. I grew anxious. The results were delayed by months.
One fine day, I was sitting high up in a guava tree enjoying the fruit when a friend ran up to tell me the results were out. “You topped the school!” he said, adding “You must be in top 3 in Ranchi?” He grinned.
Everyone else was thrilled. It was a rather high achievement for them. But I was shattered. I couldn’t make sense of it. I had slept last few months dreaming of becoming the Board topper.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I began to understand what might have happened. Perhaps some of my answer sheets really were washed away in the floods, and marks were awarded arbitrarily under the mysterious “average marks” policy I often heard seniors talk about whenever disruptions occurred. I don’t know how true this was.
Yet, is it believable that all my answer sheets were lost? What if the other possibility was true?
Decades later, while taking subjective tests to assess my own students ahead of board exams, I noticed many of them writing extensively about things that weren’t actually asked. I called them and advised: “Thoda kam likho.”
Could that be a reason for my underwhelming board score? Did I write too much? I know deep within that all my answers were factually correct. But answering an exam is not just about being right; it is about answering the specific question asked. Understanding the prompt and writing precisely what is required wins marks. Back then, maybe I lacked that strategic filter. I simply could not resist writing out two or three different methods to solve every single trigonometry and geometry problem!
Or, maybe I was really unlucky! Today, I can only say that some things are beyond our control, luck has a role in your life. More importantly, never ever think that you are the smartest. Life will humble you in its own ways.
One more thing worth sharing : the boy who topped the Boards that year studied with me in St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi for class 11 /12 (Back then it was called Intermediate of Science, I.Sc). About 15 students cracked JEE from the college. Such was the aura of St. Xavier’s at that time. I was lucky that I got to study with them. I got AIR 1586 in IIT JEE and there were at least 3 students in the same college who performed even better than me. Almost all students who took JEE also used to appear in Roorkee Engineering Exam (Roorkee was not IIT at that time but definitely one of the best colleges in the country). I got AIR 105 in Roorkee exam – best in entire Ranchi – not sure if it was the best in Bihar. Later learnt that I would have been the opening rank had I opted for CS at Roorkee. I didn’t go there. That is a story for another day.
As far as I could recall, our Board topper was not in the list of JEE/Roorkee qualified. I am sure that he must have had a flourishing career. Many others who never qualified JEE/Roorkee, went on to become major success in various other fields. Your professional success will depend on many things apart from your JEE Score.
SHASHI BHUSHAN TIWARI
KEY LEARNINGS
- Every question needs to be understood well. The answers must be framed within the
boundary of the question. This is important for Boards as well as JEE.
2. Advice from an experienced person is always worth mulling. I did not get the advice of my
teacher and it likely cost me. Listening to someone who has seen many outcomes is a
shortcut worth taking.
3. My over cautious approach – thinking that I need to write everything in exam – proved
harmful.
4. Result in one exam does not define you. Keep learning, keep growing.
5. Confidence in your abilities is good. Confidence that you are the smartest and you have
nothing left to learn is dangerous.
