Some dreams begin with a carefully planned decision.

Mine began with a bag of clothes, an ATM card, and a train journey to a city I barely knew.

I was a teenager from a small town in Uttar Pradesh, when I moved to Kanpur to prepare for IIT JEE. For the next three years, Kakadeo became my home.

If you have ever lived there, you probably remember the crowded lanes, coaching signboards, photocopy shops, hostels, food stalls, and students carrying heavy bags from one class to another.

Everyone seemed to be chasing the same dream.

Some looked confident. Some looked exhausted. Most of us were pretending not to be afraid.

Kanpur taught me Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, but those were not its most important lessons. The city taught me how to live alone, make difficult decisions, recover from failure, and keep working when hard work did not produce the result I expected.

This is not only a story about getting into IIT.

It is a story about friendships, chocolates, hostel rooms, lost bicycles, sleepless nights, disappointing ranks, second chances, and three beautiful fives.

It is also a thank-you note to my parents, my brother, my teachers, and the friends who shared this journey with me: Deepak, Dhanraj, Dilip, Gaurav Puri, Utkarsh, Sajal, Kushagra, Manish Bhaiya, Krishna Bhaiya, Dharmveer, and many others.

This is the story of my three years in Kanpur.

The Night I Arrived

It was 15 May 2012.

After a painful goodbye to my family, I left Nichlaul and travelled to Kanpur alone.

I carried a bag of clothes and an ATM card. At that age, the card felt like proof that I had become independent.

I soon learned that independence has very little to do with owning an ATM card.

I reached Kanpur Central railway station at around eleven at night. From there, I took an auto to Rawatpur Crossing, where my friend Alok Mishra was waiting for me.

We walked towards his hostel through unfamiliar streets.

On the way, I noticed a huge building glowing with lights and advertisements.

“What is that?” I asked.

“That is Rave Moti,” he replied.

It was a shopping mall.

I had come from a small town, so the sight of a large, brightly lit mall felt almost unreal. It looked like something from another world.

The hostel room felt equally unfamiliar, although far less impressive. It was small, crowded, and uncomfortable. The person who ran it was strange enough to make me realise that I would not be staying there for long.

Mishra Ji had also come from Nichlaul to prepare for IIT JEE. He knew more about Kanpur than I did, but I was still completely confused.

I did not know which coaching institute to join.

I did not know which teachers were good.

I did not know where to live.

I did not even understand how the coaching system worked.

Kakadeo was known as a coaching mandi. Every lane was filled with institutes, agents, hostels, advertisements, and people promising to guide students towards success.

For a newcomer, it was almost impossible to know whom to trust.

So, for my first three days in Kanpur, I did very little that could be called preparation.

I explored the city.

I visited JK Temple.

I spent time inside an air-conditioned mall for the first time in my life.

JK Temple seemed to attract more young couples than devotees. Perhaps that was appropriate for a temple dedicated to Lord Krishna.

You understand what I mean.

After three days of wandering around, I finally asked Mishra Ji to take me to his Physics class.

The institute was called QUARK.

It was small and did not look particularly impressive from the outside. Still, I needed to begin somewhere.

That was where I met Mr Anant Agnihotri, the teacher who would eventually become my Physics guru.

I gathered some courage and asked him a question.

“Sir, do you teach school-level Physics here or IIT JEE-level Physics?”

He looked at my confused face and smiled.

“Beta, attend one or two classes first. Then decide. We begin with the basics and gradually reach the IIT JEE level.”

The next day, I attended my first Mechanics class.

By the end of the lecture, I knew I had found the right Physics teacher.

One problem was solved.

Two remained.

I still needed teachers for Mathematics and Chemistry.

Welcome to the Competition

Someone recommended M. Sahvan for Mathematics and G. D. Verma for Chemistry.

When I entered the Mathematics classroom for the first time, I stopped for a moment.

The room was centrally air-conditioned. The furniture looked expensive. The students appeared confident and well prepared.

I had never studied in an environment like that.

During the class, the teacher asked whether the CBSE Class X results had been announced.

They had.

Nearly half the students in the room had scored a perfect 10 CGPA. Only a few, including me, had scored around 9.

I looked around and thought, “This is going to be difficult.”

After the class, I joined the foundation batch.

I called my father and asked him to bring the rest of my belongings. The next day, I began searching for a room. After walking for hours in the summer heat, I finally found one.

My father and brother arrived that evening.

Before leaving, my father met Anant Sir and said something simple.

“We have great hopes from him.”

He did not say much, but those words stayed with me.

After my family left, I felt unstoppable.

Garam khoon hai bhai ka. Phod denge.

I believed I was ready to conquer everything.

I was not.

Searching for a School

My next challenge was finding a school.

I needed one where attendance would not become the centre of my existence. Coaching and self-study were my priorities, so a school with strict attendance rules could make life difficult.

Finding such a school with available seats was harder than I expected.

I visited Virendra Swaroop, MPEC, Jugal Devi, Kendriya Vidyalayas, Puranchand, and several others.

Everywhere, the answer was the same.

No seats.

I also visited Sir Padampat Singhania Education Centre behind JK Temple. It was an excellent school and seemed suitable for students preparing through coaching.

For a moment, I thought my search was over.

Then I heard the admission fee.

For some families, the amount may have been manageable. For someone from a typical middle-class family like mine, it was far beyond reach.

The fee would not simply have burnt a hole in my pocket. It would have burnt through my pocket, my bag, and probably the room I was living in.

I began to worry.

Then, during Chemistry class, I met a boy named Deepak Gangwani.

At that time, he looked like a complete champu. Today, to my surprise, he has transformed into a handsome man who receives far more attention than he did back then.

Life is unpredictable.

He sat beside me and asked, “How much did you score in the test?”

“Fifty-six out of ninety-six,” I replied.

“Okay. I got sixty-six.”

It sounded like a small attempt to show off.

My inner voice immediately replied, “Bro, I do not care.”

That same boy later became one of the most loyal friends I have ever had.

When Deepak learned that I was an outsider searching for admission in Class XI, he suggested that I take the entrance examination for Guru Nanak Public School with him.

In the next class, I met another interesting character, Gaurav Puri.

Gaurav was careful with money, sometimes almost painfully careful, but he had a genuinely kind heart.

He warned me that attendance was compulsory at Guru Nanak Public School.

I had no better option.

So Deepak, my brother, and I went there, and I took admission.

My First Day at School

My first day at school introduced me to people who would later become like brothers.

It also introduced me to a few people who seemed determined to make life unnecessarily difficult.

The new students did not yet have the official uniform, so we arrived dressed entirely in white.

As we walked through the school, the older students stared at us as if a group of ghosts had entered the building.

We felt uncomfortable, but we kept walking as though everything was perfectly normal.

Every forty-five minutes, a new teacher entered the classroom. Each had a different personality and a unique way of introducing themselves.

The most memorable entrance belonged to our English teacher, Shakti Ma’am.

Her name meant power.

After a few days, I discovered that there was plenty of power in her hands too.

She entered the room and announced loudly, “Classes have been running since April. Several chapters are already complete, and I am not going to teach them again.”

I was not pleased with her announcement.

However, as the year progressed, she became supportive and encouraging. She helped me on several occasions and was understanding about the demands of my coaching schedule.

Her support made school a little easier to manage alongside my JEE preparation.

I attended school on alternate days and usually offered the same excuse.

My Class XI teacher quickly understood what I was doing.

Whenever I appeared at school, I was punished and made to stand outside the classroom for the first two periods.

Eventually, I began to enjoy those free periods.

My first unit-test result was less enjoyable.

I scored around 50 per cent.

It was far below what I had imagined.

During my first year, I had almost no emotional connection with the school.

I swear.

The Power of Chocolate

A more exciting chapter began in Chemistry class when we finally reached the Mole Concept.

Before that, we had spent an entire month studying nomenclature, which felt endless.

G. D. Verma Sir organised a class test. A friend and I both scored 80 out of 80 and jointly stood first.

That was when I discovered an important tradition in his class.

The top five students received chocolates.

I got a Cadbury.

At that age, a small chocolate felt like a medal.

Sahvan Sir offered something even better. He announced a prize of ₹500 for the student who secured first place in his Mathematics test.

Unfortunately, I did not win.

I did not even come close.

Many things were turning out differently from what I had expected, and the results were beginning to affect my confidence.

Still, apne andar ka bhai garam tha.

Physics and Mathematics were the subjects I truly enjoyed. Chemistry interested me far less during Class XI.

Yet the promise of chocolate kept me among the top five surprisingly often.

Motivation can come from strange places.

Friend or Rival?

Around this time, I met Utkarsh Katiyar in Mathematics class.

He was intelligent, disciplined, and a genuinely good person. He later joined the National Defence Academy and went on to serve the country.

We became close friends, but one incident created bitterness between us.

Sahvan Sir organised a series of three Calculus tests. He announced that the top five students would join him for a meal at Landmark Hotel and visit IIT Kanpur.

We were thrilled.

For us, IIT Kanpur was not just a campus. It was the dream itself.

We prepared seriously.

I finished fifth.

I had qualified for the trip, but I was deeply disappointed with my rank.

I have never liked losing. Even today, very few things affect me more.

After the result, I stopped talking to everyone, including Utkarsh and Deepak, who had secured third and fourth positions.

Utkarsh misunderstood my silence.

He thought I was upset because he had scored better than me.

When he confronted me, I smiled, hugged both of them, and explained the truth.

I was not unhappy about their success.

I was disappointed with myself.

A few days later, Sahvan Sir made an interesting offer to Sajal, Kushagra, Utkarsh, and Deepak. He asked them to move into the hostel attached to the institute so that he could give them personal attention.

Sajal and Kushagra refused.

Utkarsh and Deepak agreed.

At first, I stayed away from the discussion. My relationship with Sahvan Sir was limited to Mathematics. I did not involve myself in anything else.

Then Utkarsh recommended my name.

Sahvan Sir called me and offered me a place in the hostel.

I was uncertain, so I asked for time to speak with my parents. They agreed. I even travelled with Utkarsh to his home, where we convinced his parents too.

Utkarsh and Deepak moved into the hostel.

Only then did I learn about an important condition.

If I joined them, I would have to leave my Physics and Chemistry classes and depend entirely on self-study.

Self-study is valuable, but I had not yet completed the IIT JEE syllabus. I still needed guidance from my teachers.

Suddenly, I had to choose between living with my friends and protecting my preparation.

I spoke to Anant Sir.

He strongly advised me not to leave my classes.

After thinking carefully, I rejected the hostel offer.

Utkarsh stopped speaking to me.

Deepak remained close, but I knew my decision had damaged my friendship with Utkarsh.

I hoped I would eventually be able to explain myself.

For the moment, I decided to focus on my goal.

The Hundred-Rupee Question

One of my favourite memories from those years took place in a Physics class.

Anant Sir wrote a Mechanics problem on the board and made an announcement.

“Whoever solves this within three minutes will get a hundred-rupee note.”

The atmosphere changed instantly.

Everyone sat upright.

Hearts began beating faster.

Even inside the air-conditioned classroom, I started sweating.

I wanted that note.

Not because I desperately needed the money, but because a hundred rupees could pay for a good treat.

The timer began.

Pens moved furiously.

For those three minutes, the classroom disappeared. The other students disappeared. The entire world disappeared.

Only the question remained.

When the time ended, three hands went up.

Mine, Dhanraj’s, and Sajal’s.

Each of us explained our answer and method.

Mine was correct.

I won the note.

That small victory gave me something far more valuable than ₹100.

It gave me belief.

For the first time, I felt that I might be capable of becoming someone special, at least for myself, my parents, and my teachers.

Many abilities remain hidden until the right moment brings them out.

After that day, I began giving everything I had in every test. Even when I finished second or third, I stayed motivated and tried to reach first place.

Eventually, I achieved it in a Fluid Mechanics test.

I scored 100 out of 140 and stood first.

During Class XI, I also began strengthening my concepts through H. C. Verma’s Concepts of Physics.

Whenever I skipped school, I sometimes spent five to seven hours studying Physics alone.

Chemistry, unfortunately, received very little attention.

That imbalance would later cost me.

Becoming Complete

Someone once told me something that stayed with me.

“If you are strong in two subjects, you may get selected. If you want a good rank, you must be strong in all three.”

That sentence described my problem perfectly.

Chemistry was the subject I kept avoiding. At times, I feared it would prevent me from clearing the examination.

Anant Sir suggested that I join Pankaj Sir’s Chemistry classes.

I entered Class XII determined to confront my weakest subject.

Pankaj Sir and Nirmal Sir taught Chemistry so well that my fear slowly began turning into confidence.

For the first time, I understood that ignoring a weakness does not make it disappear.

You have to face it directly.

Boards, JEE, and Everything in Between

When my Class XI results were announced, I stood first.

The same Chemistry teacher who had punished me throughout the year came to me and said, “Mr Praphul Singh, I do not care whether you attend school. The only thing I need from you is the result.”

My reaction was immediate.

Main to yahi chahta tha.

Class XII was the real challenge.

I now had to balance board examinations with IIT JEE preparation.

Around this time, I became friends with Dhanraj Naikwade. He was a brilliant student and an exceptionally kind person.

Later, I moved into his hostel in R. S. Puram.

Dhanraj treated me like a brother.

One memory involving him still makes me emotional.

I once lost his bicycle.

It was not an ordinary bicycle. His father had given it to him as a birthday present.

When I told him, he gave me a sad smile and tried to hide his tears.

Watching him struggle to control his emotions made me feel terrible.

On happier days, I loved listening to him speak Marathi with his family over the phone.

His Chemistry, especially Organic Chemistry, was excellent. We sat together in class, discussed difficult questions, and studied late into the night, sometimes until four or five in the morning.

Those discussions improved my Chemistry more than I understood at the time.

When Dhanraj eventually left the hostel, it was deeply emotional for me.

Still, the preparation had to continue.

My brother, Prashant Singh, played the most important role in my studies.

At every stage, he corrected me, criticised me, encouraged me, and pushed me to do better.

He made sure that household work never interrupted my preparation. He washed my clothes and brought breakfast for me every morning.

It is easy to praise the person who succeeds.

We often forget the people who quietly make that success possible.

My brother was one of those people.

The atmosphere in the new hostel was perfect for studying.

Manish Bhaiya, who was in my batch and became like an elder brother, regularly discussed difficult problems with me.

During Class XII, I began topping many Physics and Mathematics tests. Chemistry was improving too, although I still lacked complete confidence.

My friendship with Sajal and Kushagra also grew stronger.

Sajal and I frequently challenged each other with difficult questions. Our discussions became small research sessions in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

I also met Krishna Bhaiya and his younger brother, Anoop, who was preparing for the same examination.

Anoop owned a huge collection of books by authors such as A. M. Agarwal, S. K. Goyal, and D. C. Pandey, along with several Cengage Learning publications.

Seeing those books changed the way I prepared.

Until then, I had focused mainly on coaching assignments. I now began solving standard books and exploring problems beyond the material covered in class.

I was the youngest person in the hostel, and everyone treated me like a younger brother. Nobody disturbed me while I studied.

At school, the teachers had also stopped troubling me about attendance.

As a result, I attended very few classes that year.

My performance in Mathematics and Physics kept improving. Chemistry was better too, but the confidence was still missing.

The Board Examinations

My board examinations began on 1 March.

For the next twenty-four days, I shifted my entire focus away from JEE and towards the boards.

Manish Bhaiya helped me greatly. He had been a board topper and understood how to prepare intelligently.

I followed his advice carefully.

The examinations ended on 24 March.

I now had only ten days before JEE Main.

My brother went to Aligarh so that I could study without distraction. I created a detailed plan and prepared as systematically as possible.

On the morning of JEE Main, the examination centre was crowded and tense.

More than five hundred students were present.

The paper began at 9:30.

I was extremely nervous.

When the question paper reached me, my hands began to tremble. My palms and forehead were covered with sweat.

The first section was Mathematics.

The opening question was based on quadratic equations. It was easy, but I could not solve it.

I spent four minutes on that single question.

My heartbeat increased.

If I could not solve the first easy question, how would I solve the remaining eighty-nine?

Then I remembered my teacher’s advice.

“Attempt Chemistry first.”

I immediately changed my approach.

Within thirty to thirty-five minutes, I completed the Chemistry section. Then I moved to Physics and finally returned to Mathematics.

When I looked at the first question again, I solved it easily.

Pressure had made a simple problem appear impossible.

I completed the paper on time, but I made too many avoidable mistakes.

My score was 250 out of 360.

It was respectable.

It was also not enough for me.

The Result That Broke Me

After JEE Main, I began preparing for JEE Advanced.

My preparation was going well, and eventually 25 May arrived.

Paper 1 went reasonably well, but I was not fully confident.

Chemistry continued to trouble me. My strength in Physics and Mathematics carried me forward, but I knew Chemistry could damage my rank.

At five in the evening, the examination ended.

There was nothing more I could do.

When the result was announced, I received an All India Rank of 7720.

I was shattered.

I cried in secret.

For a while, I felt like someone without purpose, ambition, or direction.

My own disappointment was painful, but the thought that I had disappointed my parents and teachers hurt even more.

I left the hostel and returned home.

My parents encouraged me to participate in counselling, but I refused. I believed that a general-category rank of 7720 would not give me anything I truly wanted.

Then Anant Sir called.

“Praphul, you were born to do something great for your parents. Do not give up. Fight again.”

His words stayed with me.

After nearly a month, I decided to try once more.

One More Attempt

For my second attempt, I joined Chemistry classes and prepared Physics and Mathematics on my own.

By then, I understood the weaknesses hidden behind my strengths.

My speed was good.

My efficiency was good.

My accuracy was not.

I solved many questions, but I rarely studied my mistakes properly.

Instead of returning to a hostel, I rented a two-room section of a house and moved in with three close friends.

The preparation began again.

This time, I practised at a completely different level.

In a single month, I solved more than 10,000 problems.

Anant Sir advised me to develop a more subjective and concept-oriented approach.

Following his advice, I worked through advanced problems from Cengage Learning, S. K. Goyal, A. M. Agarwal, Abhay Singh, and the distance-learning material from Bansal Classes.

To improve my accuracy, I joined test series from Bansal Classes, Resonance, and Utkarsh Gail Super 100.

My scores began improving steadily.

Earlier, my competition had been limited to a few thousand students in Kanpur. Through national-level test series, I was now competing with students from across India.

That changed my mindset.

I became more ambitious.

In one test series, I achieved All India Rank 7.

In another, I stood fifth in Physics.

Several strong ranks followed.

The Chemistry that had frightened me during my first attempt became almost as strong as Mathematics.

I stopped thinking constantly about the final result.

I focused on learning and collecting every mark I could.

I did not study for fourteen or fifteen hours a day.

I studied for around seven or eight.

But those hours were honest.

They had concentration, discipline, and purpose.

I also made a strategic decision. I skipped topics that were useful only for JEE Main and focused mainly on the Advanced syllabus.

This time, I scored 270 in JEE Main.

I was confident that I would secure an excellent rank in JEE Advanced.

I hoped to finish within the top 200.

Life had a different number in mind.

Three Fives

When the JEE Advanced result was announced, I received All India Rank 555.

It was not the rank below 200 that I had imagined.

Still, it was beautiful.

It felt special.

There was something deeply satisfying about those three fives.

After hundreds of tests, thousands of mistakes, more than a hundred thick notebooks, sleepless nights, hostel rooms, difficult friendships, moments of confidence, and moments of complete hopelessness, the dream had finally become real.

The ink spread across all those notebooks had finally shown its colour.

I had made it to IIT Kanpur.

What Those Three Years Taught Me

My three years in Kanpur were never only about preparing for an examination.

They were made of hundreds of moments that shaped me.

Those years taught me that life can place you in situations that defeat you, break you, and make you cry.

The same life can also teach you how to stand again.

It can guide you towards success, but only when you are willing to examine your weaknesses honestly.

My first attempt taught me that hard work alone is not always enough.

You must analyse your mistakes.

It taught me that speed without accuracy can be dangerous.

It taught me that excellence in two subjects cannot always compensate for neglecting the third.

It taught me that sometimes you must choose your goal, even when the choice affects your friendships.

Most importantly, it taught me that failure is not the end of a journey.

Sometimes failure simply shows you how your next attempt must be different.

Those three years gave me teachers who guided me, friends who challenged me, brothers who supported me, and parents who continued believing in me even when I had stopped believing in myself.

This is the story of my three years in Kanpur.

A story of friendships, chocolates, hundred-rupee challenges, lost bicycles, examination halls, disappointments, second chances, and finally, three beautiful fives.

And if you are preparing for a difficult examination while feeling lost, remember this:

A bad result can damage your confidence, but it does not have the authority to decide your future.

Only you can decide whether the story ends there.