While growing up, there are two options in life. First, follow the tried and tested roads of your elders – be it parents or other family members – and in most cases, it is a sure-shot road to success.
Second, you are a rebel; you find the tried and tested roads a bit clichéd and you want to explore your own. If this road is taken – it is a journey full of adventure, there is no guarantee of sure-shot success, but there will be pitfalls and sure-shot failure.
The second option teaches nuanced life lessons at a very tender age and makes one psychologically strong. This journey gradually exposes you to your true potential – which is best suited for you rather than an imposed one.
There is sheer joy in one success after umpteen failures. And you are always going to love your work because you explored and chose it for yourself.
In my case, I come from a small village in Bihar, and I am the first generation in my big joint family pursuing higher education. So naturally, I plunged into the second option.
To my advantage, there was never financial constraint and my father has been my unflinching support and he always tells me – do whatever you feel is good for you.
During my boarding school days, I was a shy, introverted and mediocre student. The phase of 9th-10th made me confused because mathematics scared me to the bones and we were taught that science is the only option after 10th – either go for Engineering (IIT) or in rare cases, medical – if you wish to have a good placement with a handsome package.
I passed my 10th Board with good marks, till then, it was all hunky-dory. All my friends opted out engineering, but I walked out of the flock and chose medical, never knowing the fact life is going to be miserable – because physics and physical chemistry was all about mathematics – integration, differentiation etc.
I had never failed before but I started to fail in class tests and exams. I stopped going to school and bunked coaching classes. Although I managed to pass the 12th board, however, it was a complete disaster.
But I was ambitious and desperately wanted to be a doctor at that time. So, I joined a reputed medical coaching institute – attended classes regularly, worked hard, deactivated social media accounts, cut-off contact with my friends and stopped using a smartphone. This continued for three years because every year, I was short of a few marks from the cut-off.
After the third attempt – though too late – I realized I may go on trying and qualify medical entrance through sheer hard work, but I will never excel in this field because science is not my thing. Accepting this truth, I dropped the idea of pursuing my career in any field of science.
Politics and news anchors (though I now find most of them ethically corrupt and intellectually bankrupt) – sort of excited me. I decided to pursue journalism and mass communication, I’m in my final semester, I’ve not failed even once and my grades are extremely good.
The journalism course, I found too easy in context of theoretical semester exams; I had too much time in these three years. So, I read quite a bit – it started with newspapers, magazines then novels (fiction and non-fiction).
The readings gave me a feeling – I love studying history, polity, law, philosophy, sociology etc. So it’s now sorted out – I’m an art student and was on a misadventure with science.
But I carry no baggage of the past because I know my failures are my biggest lessons and strength. I am yet not a success story, but I am one in making for sure.