I am not a believer of New Year resolutions. For me, those are just gimmicks of weak-willed people. So I refused to categorize my first lecture in Career Launcher on January 1, 2012 as a New Year resolution. I was just happy to be in a classroom, away from my office. People had partied hard the night before, and as a result there were only 2 people in the class of Reading Comprehension that day. Many teachers would have felt inclined to cancel that class, but mine went ahead with it; a clear sign that she respected the two individuals for showing up on 1st January. A good first impression, I must say. She was to go on to become my strongest mentor and supporter in the days to come.
The next 9 months were the actual preparation period for the exam. People suggested that I was risking saturation by starting so early. They were right. It is actually tough to maintain the same intensity throughout and you run the risk of losing interest. This race had to be run as a long distance race. As Dhoni would say- rather than beginning well, it is important to peak at the right time in a long tournament. So I tread at a smooth pace for the first 5 months before steaming up in the months from June to September.
I have been asked this question often whether I felt exhaustion or found it difficult to manage my time between office, weekend classes, two mock test series’ and the inevitable cricket which I never gave up. My answer would always be the same –“I am just relieved to be sitting in a classroom.” Indeed I was relieved; relieved because I was proving to be a complete failure at work in my company and the classroom was the only place to relieve my bruised ego and earn some accolades. Classroom became the place to be- every weekend –6 hours. It’s not that it was a cakewalk in the classroom. Maths was something I always struggled with, but I always used to look forward to the Reasoning and English class. My English teacher by now had grown fond of me, and she was more like an elder sister to me than a teacher.
And it was not just about the subjects or about the teacher. The classroom gave me two of my best friends – Anshul Utpal and Prateek Chaturvedi. We competed with each other and at the same time derived happiness from each other’s success in the tests. Anshul was more consistent of the three when it came to mock tests. I and Prateek had more in common – we struggled with Maths, loved English and swung between excellence and mediocrity in the mock tests. I loved the unique camaraderie that had developed among the three of us. Meanwhile, the D-Day approached.
Link to Part 2 , Part 3 and Final Part