Where I come from
I grew up in Akshanpally, a small village in Sangareddy district, Telangana. Let me set the scene properly. No internet. No mobile phones. Nothing. The first time I used the internet in my life was in my B.Tech. So no, I was not the kid googling colleges at night. There was nothing to google with.
I studied in the government school there, in Telugu medium. My mother worked as a maid. We did not have much. But school had one thing that always made sense to me: mathematics. Every other subject felt like work. Maths felt like a game someone had hidden inside a textbook by mistake.
The watchman who changed my school
Next to our house lived an uncle who worked as a watchman. He knew my mother, he knew me, and he did one small thing that changed my whole life. He helped me join Government High School, Ramayampet, in 8th class, along with his son. There was a government boys hostel nearby, so I stayed there.
He was not doing some big planned favour. He just took a village kid along with his son. That is it. Half my story exists because a watchman uncle said, come, you also join.
Shilpa madam and the borrowed books
At Ramayampet, also a Telugu medium school, I met my maths teacher, Shilpa madam.
My routine was simple. I finished our class maths textbook in two or three months. Then I picked up the next class book and started solving that. In 8th class I was solving 10th class problems. During hostel study hours I used to teach my seniors from 10th class. Imagine a 10th class boy getting maths doubts cleared by an 8th class kid. My seniors were sporting about it. Mostly.
Whatever class the doubt came from, Shilpa madam cleared it. She never once said, this is not your syllabus, go away. Instead she went home and brought me her son’s Olympiad maths books. I still have them.
Then our headmaster, Vishnu Vardhan Reddy sir, joined in. His daughter had IIT coaching books, 8th, 9th and 10th class material. He collected them all and handed them to me. Read these, he said.
I will be honest. Those books were overwhelming. Some pages I would stare at for a long time and understand nothing. But it was the kind of tough that pulls you in instead of pushing you away. I kept going back to them.
And here is the funny part. I was working through IIT coaching books before I knew what IIT was. If you had asked me what IIT stands for, I would have given you a confident wrong answer. Confidence was never my problem. Please remember this line. It comes back later.
The English lesson
10th class. English period. A lesson called “I Will Do It”. It was the story of Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys. Somewhere in that lesson, I met a word I had never heard in my life: IIT.
I was very inspired. And I did what I always did with inspiration. I ran to Shilpa madam and announced my new life plan. Madam, I will join IIT.
Some background is needed here. A few weeks before this, she had shown me success stories of IAS officers. My reaction then was, madam, I will become an IAS officer too. That was my system. Any great thing I heard about, I would declare it as my future. New dream every week. Free of cost.
So when I said IIT, her first reaction was basically, oh, come on. Then she said okay, okay, okay, sat me down, and explained how hard that road really is.
And then, exactly as expected, I forgot about IIT completely. My goals changed daily. Only one goal was permanent: become rich. How? No idea. Details were for later.
A newspaper in a hostel
In the hostel we got newspapers every day, and we actually read them. One day, in the middle of my 10th class exam preparation, I saw a notification. Telangana Social Welfare Residential Schools were taking admissions into their junior colleges. One line caught my eye: IIT coaching will be provided.
And there was a promise. If you cleared IIT from there, they would give you a laptop and some money. A laptop. And money. My friend and I applied immediately.
It was a two stage exam, prelims and mains. I passed both. That is how I reached TSWR COE Karimnagar, where I met my guru, Devendar Reddy sir.
A love story with mathematics
At Karimnagar I met the most beautiful books of my life. Integral calculus. Differential calculus. I went all the way to Koti in Hyderabad and bought HC Verma. These books were my whole world. I read them the way other people watch movies.
And yes, I knew the exam had three papers. Maths, physics and chemistry. Everybody knew. Knowing was never the problem. The problem was that I loved maths too much. When you love one subject that much, the other two start looking like side characters. So I did maths all day. Not for rank, not for marks. Just because I loved it.
In every test, I solved the full maths section, attempted two or three physics theory questions for entertainment, and submitted the paper. I never checked my scores. Why would I? I was clearly a genius. Checking scores is for people who have doubts about themselves.
Chemistry, I ignored completely. Except organic chemistry, because Karunakar Reddy sir taught it, and he was fabulous. His organic classes were the only classes I attended with my full brain. In the rest of the classes, my body was present and my mind was solving an integral. Everything else I studied on my own. That was my way from the beginning.
First attempt
I cleared JEE Mains. Then I walked into JEE Advanced with full overconfidence and one and a half subjects.
Maths went great. Physics went okay. Chemistry and I met in that exam hall as strangers, and we left as strangers.
I did not qualify.
That day, a deep truth finally entered my head. Being a genius in maths and treating chemistry as an optional hobby has a result, and the result is called “not qualified”. It turns out the exam does not give you a seat for love. It wants marks. In all three subjects. Shocking.
The counselling I never attended
There is a part here I have not told many people.
Along with JEE, I had also written EAMCET, and I got a good rank. Good enough for a proper engineering seat. And with our economic condition, the sensible path was very clear. Attend the counselling, take the seat, join a local college, start earning as early as possible.
I did not go to the counselling.
Not because I forgot the date. I skipped it on purpose. I had lost IIT because of one subject, and I could not digest it. I was depressed. And I was stubborn. The only line running in my head was, I wanted IIT and chemistry took it from me. So I sat at home and let a good EAMCET rank expire, knowingly. Was it sensible? No. But stubbornness has never asked me for permission.
My family did not know what to do with me. Finally, my sister picked up the phone and called the one person who always understood me. Shilpa madam. My maths madam from Ramayampet, still clearing my doubts years later, just bigger ones this time.
She talked to me, stood by my decision, and helped me join a training centre for a second attempt.
Second attempt
I will not lie, I did not enjoy that training centre. It ran like a pressure cooker. Tension everywhere, ranks everywhere, everyone running. That was never how I studied.
So inside all that noise, I did what I had always done. I studied my own way. I forcefully read chemistry. There is no nicer way to say it. We did not fall in love. We came to an agreement. I kept maths and physics sharp, and this time all three subjects got a seat in my preparation.
And that is how I got into IIT Madras.
About that laptop
It never came. I am still waiting. If anyone from the department is reading this, you know where to find me.
But here is the part I actually think about. A kid from Akshanpally. Telugu medium. Government schools all the way. Mother working as a maid. No internet until B.Tech. And then a watchman uncle, a maths madam, a headmaster, one English lesson, a newspaper in a hostel, and a sister who knew exactly whom to call. Remove any one of them and this story ends somewhere else.
The lesson was called “I Will Do It”. When I read it in 10th class, I said it too, with zero information and full overconfidence.
Turns out I actually did it.