Let me be clear from the very first line: I was never the student people pointed to as an example. My name didn't appear on school honour boards. I didn't win inter-school quiz competitions or medals on sports day. I wasn't in the drama club or the music team. I sat somewhere in the middle of every class, average marks, unremarkable attendance record, no particular reason to be noticed.
But there was one thing. Give me a computer, a problem, and enough time — and I wouldn't stop. That was it. That was the only thing I had going for me. And for a long time, I didn't even know if it was enough.
"I wasn't the smartest in the room. I was just the one who wouldn't leave."
— the only edge I ever hadThe Honest Report Card
Before I tell you how I got into IIT Patna, let me give you the version of me that no one frames on a wall. This is what my profile actually looked like growing up:
That last line? That's the one that mattered. Not the blank rows.
A Name I Heard Once
Somewhere in primary school, I came across the name IIT Kharagpur. I don't remember the exact moment — maybe a relative mentioned it, maybe a teacher, maybe I overheard a conversation. But the phrase stuck: "it's one of the greatest technical institutions in the country."
That was enough. I was a kid who liked taking things apart to see how they worked. A place built entirely around that instinct sounded like somewhere I belonged. I didn't fully understand what IIT meant, what getting in required, or even that there were multiple campuses across India. I just filed the name away somewhere in the back of my mind: that kind of place — technical, serious, full of people who actually build things.
It wasn't a detailed dream. It was more like a compass needle. Pointing somewhere, even if I couldn't yet see the destination clearly.
Class 10 and the Pressure That Comes After
Madhyamik results came. They were decent — good enough to unlock the next chapter. And like every student in my situation, the chapter was written for me before I could choose it: Science stream. JEE or NEET. Pick one and start preparing.
I picked JEE. Of course I did — the idea of engineering, of systems, of making computers do things, that had always been the pull. I joined the coaching classes, bought the books, sat in the rows of students who all seemed sharper, faster, and more certain than I was.
And then, the year I was supposed to sit for JEE — I couldn't. Not because I wasn't ready. Life happened. Circumstances happened. The exam cycle passed and I wasn't in it.
The Fork in the Road
This is the part of the story where most people expect a dramatic comeback montage. Drop everything, grind for a year, emerge victorious. I want to be honest about why I didn't do that.
I didn't have the confidence. I knew my academic foundation. I knew where I stood. A full year of isolation, betting everything on a single exam, with no safety net — that felt like a gamble I wasn't equipped to take alone.
- Take a full year drop
- Bet everything on one shot
- Give up on engineering
- Stop preparing
- Enrolled in Diploma in Engineering
- Kept JEE prep running in parallel
- Built things while studying
- Trusted the process quietly
Diploma in Engineering gets a bad reputation in circles where IIT is the only valid outcome. But for me it was a lifeline — it meant I was still learning, still building, still in the game. I was studying real subjects, working on real projects, and somewhere in the evenings and early mornings, continuing to prepare for JEE.
I had one belief that I held onto during that period: "If you give everything you have — genuinely everything — then the path opens." I don't know where that belief came from. But it kept me at the desk on the nights when stopping felt easier.
The Parallel Life
What made this period unusual wasn't the studying — it was what I was doing alongside the studying. The truth is, I'd been deep in code since 2020 — self-teaching during the pandemic lockdown, alone in Beldanga with nothing but free time and a laptop. By the time the Diploma started in 2023, building was already a daily habit. The Diploma just gave it structure and better problems.
What "Average" Actually Means
I've thought a lot about the word average since getting into IIT Patna. I used to use it as a confession — I'm just average — like it explained a ceiling. Now I think it just describes a starting position.
Average in academics meant I had to work harder per concept than the kids who grasped it in class. That's not a disadvantage — it's a training method. You learn something deeper when you have to fight for it.
Average in everything else — sports, culture, social standing — meant I had no distraction from the one thing I was genuinely good at. I wasn't being pulled in multiple directions. All of my focus, for years, went into technical depth.
I wasn't a topper. I wasn't well-rounded. I was lopsided in one direction — technical — and that lopsidedness, which looked like a flaw for most of my school years, turned out to be exactly what was needed.
IIT Patna: And Then the Real Work Began
Getting in was the proof that the approach worked. But the mindset that got me there — build constantly, go deep on one thing, stay in the game even when the path is unconventional — that's what I carried into IIT Patna.
At IIT, for the first time, I was surrounded by people whose obsessions matched mine. People who argued about algorithm complexity at dinner, who pulled all-nighters not because of deadlines but because they were genuinely curious about something. It was the first environment where being the kid who couldn't stop building was unremarkable — because everyone was like that.
The Diploma years had already produced real work — a deployed pathology system, a blockchain prototype, the coding discipline that made everything else possible. At IIT, the pace accelerated: Blix.ai, the AI Integration Hub, hackathon finals, a HackerRank 5-star rating. None of that post-IIT work would have been possible without the foundation built during the years people might have called the "wrong path."
What I Want You to Take From This
If you're reading this and you're somewhere I was — average marks, no trophies, no dramatic story of early genius — here's what I actually believe, earned through experience rather than inherited from a motivational poster:
- The unconventional path counts. Diploma → IIT is not a lesser story. It's a harder one. The route matters less than what you do when you arrive.
- Obsession beats talent at long time horizons. The kids who were smarter than me in class are not necessarily the ones building things today. Consistency compounds in ways raw ability doesn't.
- Your specific shape of "average" might be exactly right for something. I was average at everything except sitting alone with a technical problem for hours. That's not a flaw. That's a skill set.
- Missing a step doesn't end the journey. I missed the JEE cycle entirely. I found another route. The destination was the same.
- Do it quietly if you have to. I wasn't preparing loudly, posting streaks, performing effort. I was just at the desk. Every day. That's enough.
"The dream doesn't expire. It just waits for you to stop making excuses and start making moves."
— something I had to learn the hard wayI'm still building. The story isn't finished — it's barely in the second chapter. But the first chapter is proof that the story was always possible, even when I was the only one who believed it.
If this resonated with you — if you're the average kid, the one taking the longer road, the one who doesn't fit the top-rank narrative — I hope you keep going. The technical depth you're building right now is the most valuable thing you own. Don't trade it for someone else's definition of success.