Kota, IIT and the Unfulfilled Dream

Photo Credit: Sample photo from  Nokia/ Microsoft  

Introduction

There are some incidents in life which you find difficult to deal with. Now, I am penning down one such incident of my life. I went to Kota to prepare for IIT JEE. This idea came to my parents from one of their close friend whose sons also went to Kota to prepare for IIT JEE. Their elder son was selected in IIT Kanpur and the younger one was getting Marine Engineering from TS Chanakya, another very reputed college. The second one just missed the IIT by few ranks and cracked the IIT JEE next year with a rocking performance to seal a berth at IIT Kharagpur.

Why I am telling all this?

 It may be because I want to make you understand that many of us went to Kota following the footsteps of our two friends. But, no one could cross the gates of IITs. Now, it doesn’t mean I want to justify my failure. No, it was just a simple fact which I wanted to share at the beginning of this article.

At Kota

While in Kota, my only aim was to crack IIT.  I couldn't have settled for any of the NITs and getting into other colleges was beyond imagination. 

I know that I was sincere but probably my efforts were not able to match the requirements of the IIT JEE. Although, not getting into IITs was a setback which shattered me from inside. Forget IITs, I missed the NITs also by few ranks and have to settle for the next best college on my radar. 

What next?

I got selected in many colleges and could have got admitted in RV College of Engineering of Bangalore or JP Noida or Kurushetra University, Haryana or Panjab University, Chandigarh but I preferred KIIT University, Bhubaneswar for reasons like good infrastructure and better placement opportunities. One of my cousins I really admire was a final year student in the same college, so it made my decision easier.

After effect

Whenever I see any underprivileged student overcoming all odds to clear IIT JEE, I feel delighted by thinking that the student by their sheer determination has literally pulled out their family from abject poverty. At the same time, I have a guilt that despite best facilities, I failed at something which was larger than life for me.

It is not that I fret about past or I was not happy in my college but an underlying feeling was always there that despite proper facilities I failed to crack IIT JEE. I have decided to make it a reminder milestone, which will always remind me to do well and keep on improving myself to do justice to my unfulfilled dream.

Definitely, in this life, I can't go back and take a B-Tech degree from IIT but there are other ways by which I can learn from my failure and achieve greater heights in personal as well as professional life to do justice to my unfulfilled dream.

Stigma of Failure

The type of facilities and teachers we got at Kota remind me that there is always a better way to solve a problem. There is more to life than regretting one missed opportunity. Though, I have evolved my passion for getting into IIT into other meaningful pursuits in life but it took me 8 years to convince myself to make this failure known to a larger audience. In my early days in college, I would never say that I was preparing in Kota just because I found it difficult to deal with my failure.

Realization

I have already learned a lot of things while staying on my own. It was not easy to stay away from my family in a different state at that time. The progress I made as a person can't be measured but I really believe that it played a vital role in my personal development. It helped me in building a strong foundation for the future which was lying ahead of me. I am really doing well in life and working for a well respected company playing my role in one of the most prestigious mega infrastructure project of India.

My Story

My story may not be inspiring like the success stories of underprivileged students who crack IIT or achieve great success in life but I have only written this piece with the hope that my failure may also comfort someone. There are many who may resonate with my feeling and I am sure they will love to read this. I want to say others who have felt that they have missed some big opportunities in life that 

Life is all about possibilities and new opportunities, once one door closes another opens. We cannot keep on fretting about the opportunities we could not harness. There is always a way to find solace in what we have and what we can do in life. Life is much more than cracking IIT JEE or getting into a coveted college.

I hope to keep transforming my unfulfilled dream from a missed opportunity to bigger and better opportunities throughout my life. In this process, I will keep reminding everyone that life is beautiful.