Some achievements in life are tangible while others are not. There are numerous moments that made my life richer by many measures. For a small town boy like me, brought up in a modest household, admission to NITH was a welcome news to a lot of people around me. I stayed at various key positions during my 4 years of undergraduate life. I was chosen unanimously by the students as the class representative in the very first days of college. That is the time when your contacts are not many and friendships are not so thick. Yet I was catapulted to this extremely important position. I was the only student member on the UGC board, handpicked by my department.Next, I was elected as the Head of Placecom; a very responsible and much sought after position in any engineering college. I worked my days off and spent endless nights working with my team. During the last days of the 7th semester, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to represent India as a part of "The Youth Delegation to China" by the Ministry of Youth and External Affairs. A trip of this magnanimity during your college years is definitely a much applauded feather in anyone's cap. I was among the 100 people chosen from all over the country from varied disciplines and backgrounds to visit the republic of China. I got the chance to interact not only with people of that country but also a lot of them who accompanied me to the trip. I gathered a million memories that I would cherish all my life. I finished college on an equally memorable note standing out as the topper among all branches. No one could have asked for a better end to 4 years of an amazing college life.However my biggest achievement is a reward to all those that I mentioned above - the joy I could see in my parents eyes. The realization that I have made them proud and given them a reason to feel content and happy . It is this pleasure that is the guiding force behind most of the things that I do. I am well aware that I owe the maximum part of my success to my family as also my friends and would do a million more things just so that my mother can flash that beautiful and proud smile on her face just by looking at me.

Just like success, defeat too cannot be quantified. However unlike success, the realization of being defeated hits you very hard; often it knocks you down and it takes a lot of time to stand back without the fear of failing again. During my school years of 11th and 12th, I was much touted as the only student who could make it to the IIT's from my school. Yes, I deserved every bit of that expectation because of my excellent academic record and hands on approach to most of the tasks assigned to me. However complacency took the better of me. I stopped studying for around 3 months before the final exam in lieu of being overconfident of having covered all the topics. It turned to be my biggest undoing and I fell short of the JEE cutoff by a few marks. After the exam, I realized what do people mean when they say "shattered and broken". I had a tough time backing myself again and prepare for the challenges that awaited me ahead. I disappointed not only myself but my family and friends who had more faith in my abilities than me."Expectation is a double edged sword". The feeling of having let down a lot of people is bitter than the sourest cider. I could manage a state rank of 30 and entered NITH.The journey though hadn't ended, it had just begun!