I was wondering from where should I start...in this short span of time that I have lived till now, i have gone through meny ups and downs...and belive me, the downs were not only downs...but they there as down as anyone can go. But lets leave all of these aside for the time being now and here I am sharing with you something that I am really really very happy and proud of....
It was June 2007, the results of WEST BENGAL HIGHER SECONDARY EXAMS were scheduled to be declared on 1st week of June'07. Now, before delving into the details of my result and what happened following that,I would like to take to back a few more years...
Uttarpara Govt. High School...the best bengali medium school in our area. Every parent want their wards to go that school. In class I, i was not lucky enough to be admitted in the school and in class III, i did not pass the entrance test. So I went to study in the second best school in our area...Uttarpara Amarendra Vidyapith. Maybe at the back of the mind there was still a hidden desire to be able to go to the Govt School. In the year 2001, suddenly an oportunity cropped up. 3 students has lesft UGHS due to personal reasons and there was a vacancy that need to be filled. I already had a very good group of friends settled in at Amarendra Vidyapith, so I didnt wanna leave my school. But due to my fathers persuation, I appeared in the admission test. Nearly thousand students appeared for the 3 vacant seats. Somewhat I gave an invariant admission test and told my father very less chance of me getting through. The very next day I got the news of my selection through one of the UGHS teachers who lives in our housing. My parents were like ecstatic...and my world almost shattered!!! Our dominant friends group is going to break and i will be the one who is going out of the group. I did make some futile efforts to me parents to let me study in the same school as I was doing...but I knew they wont pay a heed. I mean, quite frankly, and I realize it now, you gotta be complete out of your minds to let such a chance for your child to go unattended..& now I am glad my parents didn't listen to me and unknowingly I took a life-changing decision and got admitted in UGHS.
I still remember the day when I first went to school. The classes have already been started. Bonding between group of friends already started to get stronger. I knew that amidst of all this, they will not like this new guy, who was from an unknown school, did not take tuition to any of the private teachers to which they did...to mingle with them so easily. And you wont believe me, I literally faced a boycott in the first week. No one cared to talk with me, no one liked to sit beside me...but more than that boycott, what really hurt me then was my roll number....yes, you read correctly...my class roll number in VI-A..47...out of 49 students. AT that time roll numbers changed every year depending on the result and prior to that my roll number have never been more than 3. All this seems childish now but at that time the feeling of your name being called at the last was just like how VIRUS insulted RAJU n FARHAN in front of the whole auditorium in 3 IDIOTS. The egotistic smiles of the so called front runners of the class made my life living hell. But, being a fighter within, my "never back down" attitude prevailed. Gradually I made friends with some of the not so elitist students in the class. They may be the lagers, but they were what you call TRUE FRIEND...days passed..and all of a sudden half yearly exam came. Unlike 90% of my fellow classmates who had at least 2 private tutions per subject, I had only one teacher who help me study all the subject and he was not from any school either, he was a part time tutor. So, you can understand, I was at a disadvantage because when most of the others almost knew which of the questions will be coming, I was not fully aware of the syllabus either. The result was I fared pretty badly in almost all the subjects. Got 57 in Life Sc, 44 in geography and hell 65 in my favorite mathematics!!!! But there was some silver lining...being fond of reading stories, unknowingly I have grown a likelyness for history. That not only showed at that time but also announced the arrival of a fierce competitor!!!! I remember, I got 85 out of 90 in history. the next highest was 72!!! I was away by a long margin!!! even the history teacher called me and asked me where did I take private tuition for history..and trust me his face was like seeing an ALIEN from MARS when he heard that I didn't take tuition from any specialized teacher..:D. But still some people(and i am talking about those who had the habit of scoring highest marks in the class) were trying to term that as a fluke. I just smiled at them and silently went ahead with my work with the sole objective of seeing my name higher up in the attendance list.
But I was not able to do justice to my talent. Ranked 9th in class VI annual, 7th in class VII...all in all my class rank went up and down several times from class VI to class X but it never went beyond 10, with that being said, I was not able to break into the top 4-5 position either. maybe I got distracted...maybe something(..or someone) else got more priority in my life....but will talk about that later in an another post. (this post is about the positive things of my life..will talk about the other part of me in a separate post... :-)...)
So, as I was saying....when I was in class VII, one day we heard a rumor that a news channel is coming to our school. The reason was a student of class XII of our school stood 7th in the state in HS examination. At that time, the only well known news program was KHAS KHOBOR...which was a must see in the evening at 6pm and it featured our beloved MIR in his pre-MIRAKKEL and early RJ days..so khas khobor came around 11 am. we ran all along their camera so that the camera catches us at least for a second and we can proudly boast to our parents that look..your son has come to TV!!! We even got punished for disturbing the live interview of our topper with khas khobor, some of us were made to kneel-down in the front gate of the school (how humiliating!!!!)...but the joy of being seen in the camera overpowered all other feelings of humiliation. Now you may be wondering why I am so ecstatic about a day that marks success of someone else whom I hardly knew...the answer is what my mother told me that day evening which turned my life head on and changed they way I used to look at things!!! On returning home that day, before anything else, I told my mother - "Maa aaj khas khobor dekho...amader topper-er interview ache, pechone hoyto amakeo dekhte pabe ektur jonno...!!!". Maa, in reply, said - "ami to tomake karur pechone dekhbo na, jodi tumi konodin samne theke interview site paro, sedin dekhbo..."
I cant remember now what was my reaction was after hearing this. maybe I didn't take it seriously..maybe paased that off as a joke that time. But unknowingly it crated a repelling effect in my mind. Somehow it planted a seed deep into my mind that always force me to dream big , achieve bigger things till now.
Now, lets cut back to where we started. june 1 2007..the date of declaration of our HS results.the effect of past few weeks left me almost shattered. I couldn't get through my dream B.Stat, haven't cleared IITJEE due to lack of marks in chemistry(I scored well above cut-off in Physics & Maths.. :-(...) and got a meagure rank of 3606 (another no. 6 mind you... :P...) in WBJEE. So it goes without saying that I was tensed like hell that day. The result was scheduled to be declared around 10 am. but arund 8.30 am, ETV news first showed that Uttarpara Govt High School has student in STATE top 10. Still nobody of us thought in our wildest of dreams that the student would be me.!!!! Got the news around 9.30 am. A teacher of our school called our neighbor flat and said that I have topped from school and among the top 10 in the state and I was asked to report at school as soon as possible as news channels are going to come to my school for interview. The feeling was like out-of-the world. I still couldn't belive the guy they were talking about was actually me, I thought they are wrongly mistaken someone else for myself!!! What followed afterwards is literally a dream for me. First time in my life faced TV camera, gave interview to Star Ananda, Kolkata TV, 24 ghonta. AAkash Bangla came to our home and took byte. Newspapers like aajkal, protidin, ganashakti published the report with my photo (with a weird looking spectacles then.. :D...). Gave telephonic interview with the telegraph which got published next day. Although I admit most of the things I told in the TV or to the papers were gibberish!!! I laughed my heart out when i saw my interviews on TV. the way I spoke seemed like a mixture of Munnabhai and Manmohan Sing.!!! My father still has the collection of newspapers with my pictures. I wish I had those clippings of my interview so that I could have shared that with all of you. That day was probably the longest day of my life...o many things done, so many people gathered around...so many good wishes, flowers, token gifts...I am indebted to all for making me feel like the king of the world that day.
So this kind of ends whatever I have for all of you in this post. This post was all about of the journey of just a PRITAM KUMAR PAUL to "THE" PRITAM KUMAR PAUL. From being NoOne to Someone....from down to the hell to "back with a bang.."....Although the fighter within me gradually losing its killer instinct...but that doesn't mean I am ready to take defeats on my strides... however down I feel, however lost I may be...the NEVER BACK DOWN-RISE ABOVE HATE attitude of my inner within keeps me fighting and moving forward and fills my heart and mind with one phrase - IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING...
Uttarpara Govt. High School...the best bengali medium school in our area. Every parent want their wards to go that school. In class I, i was not lucky enough to be admitted in the school and in class III, i did not pass the entrance test. So I went to study in the second best school in our area...Uttarpara Amarendra Vidyapith. Maybe at the back of the mind there was still a hidden desire to be able to go to the Govt School. In the year 2001, suddenly an oportunity cropped up. 3 students has lesft UGHS due to personal reasons and there was a vacancy that need to be filled. I already had a very good group of friends settled in at Amarendra Vidyapith, so I didnt wanna leave my school. But due to my fathers persuation, I appeared in the admission test. Nearly thousand students appeared for the 3 vacant seats. Somewhat I gave an invariant admission test and told my father very less chance of me getting through. The very next day I got the news of my selection through one of the UGHS teachers who lives in our housing. My parents were like ecstatic...and my world almost shattered!!! Our dominant friends group is going to break and i will be the one who is going out of the group. I did make some futile efforts to me parents to let me study in the same school as I was doing...but I knew they wont pay a heed. I mean, quite frankly, and I realize it now, you gotta be complete out of your minds to let such a chance for your child to go unattended..& now I am glad my parents didn't listen to me and unknowingly I took a life-changing decision and got admitted in UGHS.
I still remember the day when I first went to school. The classes have already been started. Bonding between group of friends already started to get stronger. I knew that amidst of all this, they will not like this new guy, who was from an unknown school, did not take tuition to any of the private teachers to which they did...to mingle with them so easily. And you wont believe me, I literally faced a boycott in the first week. No one cared to talk with me, no one liked to sit beside me...but more than that boycott, what really hurt me then was my roll number....yes, you read correctly...my class roll number in VI-A..47...out of 49 students. AT that time roll numbers changed every year depending on the result and prior to that my roll number have never been more than 3. All this seems childish now but at that time the feeling of your name being called at the last was just like how VIRUS insulted RAJU n FARHAN in front of the whole auditorium in 3 IDIOTS. The egotistic smiles of the so called front runners of the class made my life living hell. But, being a fighter within, my "never back down" attitude prevailed. Gradually I made friends with some of the not so elitist students in the class. They may be the lagers, but they were what you call TRUE FRIEND...days passed..and all of a sudden half yearly exam came. Unlike 90% of my fellow classmates who had at least 2 private tutions per subject, I had only one teacher who help me study all the subject and he was not from any school either, he was a part time tutor. So, you can understand, I was at a disadvantage because when most of the others almost knew which of the questions will be coming, I was not fully aware of the syllabus either. The result was I fared pretty badly in almost all the subjects. Got 57 in Life Sc, 44 in geography and hell 65 in my favorite mathematics!!!! But there was some silver lining...being fond of reading stories, unknowingly I have grown a likelyness for history. That not only showed at that time but also announced the arrival of a fierce competitor!!!! I remember, I got 85 out of 90 in history. the next highest was 72!!! I was away by a long margin!!! even the history teacher called me and asked me where did I take private tuition for history..and trust me his face was like seeing an ALIEN from MARS when he heard that I didn't take tuition from any specialized teacher..:D. But still some people(and i am talking about those who had the habit of scoring highest marks in the class) were trying to term that as a fluke. I just smiled at them and silently went ahead with my work with the sole objective of seeing my name higher up in the attendance list.
But I was not able to do justice to my talent. Ranked 9th in class VI annual, 7th in class VII...all in all my class rank went up and down several times from class VI to class X but it never went beyond 10, with that being said, I was not able to break into the top 4-5 position either. maybe I got distracted...maybe something(..or someone) else got more priority in my life....but will talk about that later in an another post. (this post is about the positive things of my life..will talk about the other part of me in a separate post... :-)...)
So, as I was saying....when I was in class VII, one day we heard a rumor that a news channel is coming to our school. The reason was a student of class XII of our school stood 7th in the state in HS examination. At that time, the only well known news program was KHAS KHOBOR...which was a must see in the evening at 6pm and it featured our beloved MIR in his pre-MIRAKKEL and early RJ days..so khas khobor came around 11 am. we ran all along their camera so that the camera catches us at least for a second and we can proudly boast to our parents that look..your son has come to TV!!! We even got punished for disturbing the live interview of our topper with khas khobor, some of us were made to kneel-down in the front gate of the school (how humiliating!!!!)...but the joy of being seen in the camera overpowered all other feelings of humiliation. Now you may be wondering why I am so ecstatic about a day that marks success of someone else whom I hardly knew...the answer is what my mother told me that day evening which turned my life head on and changed they way I used to look at things!!! On returning home that day, before anything else, I told my mother - "Maa aaj khas khobor dekho...amader topper-er interview ache, pechone hoyto amakeo dekhte pabe ektur jonno...!!!". Maa, in reply, said - "ami to tomake karur pechone dekhbo na, jodi tumi konodin samne theke interview site paro, sedin dekhbo..."
I cant remember now what was my reaction was after hearing this. maybe I didn't take it seriously..maybe paased that off as a joke that time. But unknowingly it crated a repelling effect in my mind. Somehow it planted a seed deep into my mind that always force me to dream big , achieve bigger things till now.
Now, lets cut back to where we started. june 1 2007..the date of declaration of our HS results.the effect of past few weeks left me almost shattered. I couldn't get through my dream B.Stat, haven't cleared IITJEE due to lack of marks in chemistry(I scored well above cut-off in Physics & Maths.. :-(...) and got a meagure rank of 3606 (another no. 6 mind you... :P...) in WBJEE. So it goes without saying that I was tensed like hell that day. The result was scheduled to be declared around 10 am. but arund 8.30 am, ETV news first showed that Uttarpara Govt High School has student in STATE top 10. Still nobody of us thought in our wildest of dreams that the student would be me.!!!! Got the news around 9.30 am. A teacher of our school called our neighbor flat and said that I have topped from school and among the top 10 in the state and I was asked to report at school as soon as possible as news channels are going to come to my school for interview. The feeling was like out-of-the world. I still couldn't belive the guy they were talking about was actually me, I thought they are wrongly mistaken someone else for myself!!! What followed afterwards is literally a dream for me. First time in my life faced TV camera, gave interview to Star Ananda, Kolkata TV, 24 ghonta. AAkash Bangla came to our home and took byte. Newspapers like aajkal, protidin, ganashakti published the report with my photo (with a weird looking spectacles then.. :D...). Gave telephonic interview with the telegraph which got published next day. Although I admit most of the things I told in the TV or to the papers were gibberish!!! I laughed my heart out when i saw my interviews on TV. the way I spoke seemed like a mixture of Munnabhai and Manmohan Sing.!!! My father still has the collection of newspapers with my pictures. I wish I had those clippings of my interview so that I could have shared that with all of you. That day was probably the longest day of my life...o many things done, so many people gathered around...so many good wishes, flowers, token gifts...I am indebted to all for making me feel like the king of the world that day.
So this kind of ends whatever I have for all of you in this post. This post was all about of the journey of just a PRITAM KUMAR PAUL to "THE" PRITAM KUMAR PAUL. From being NoOne to Someone....from down to the hell to "back with a bang.."....Although the fighter within me gradually losing its killer instinct...but that doesn't mean I am ready to take defeats on my strides... however down I feel, however lost I may be...the NEVER BACK DOWN-RISE ABOVE HATE attitude of my inner within keeps me fighting and moving forward and fills my heart and mind with one phrase - IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING...
