IIT Madras Civil Engineering Oil India Super 30, Dibrugarh (2013-14)

My name is Rahul Sahani. I belong to Shantipur (in Sadiya) a remote place of Assam. Brahmaputra River separates my native place Sadiya from Tinsukia district, which is the foremost reason that our area is quite backward in terms of education, information, connectivity, medical & transportation facilities. My father runs a shop and mother is a house wife. Amongst the four siblings (3 brothers and 1  sister), I am the eldest one. My father was the only bread and butter earner in our family. The shop was generating good business and we were fairly managing our expenses, till the time misfortune hit us hard  due to my father’s drinking habits. My initial schooling happened at St. Thomas School, the only English medium school in our area. I am always indebted to my parents as they always provided me the best education at any cost. Since my childhood I was a sharp student who always dreamt of becoming an engineer. As both my parents are simple matriculates, the credit of shaping my life goes to my tuition teacher. My father’s drinking habits led to the gradual ruin of our shop, which deteriorated our financial condition.

Five years of my life (from 5th to 10th standard) were like the most traumatising years which brought great suffering to my family as well. Sometimes, in the absence of our father, we brothers had to replace our father to run the shop. We were shattered after knowing later that my father had developed kidney tumor, but unfortunately he was being operated for kidney stone by the doctors (an example of complete careless attitude of them towards patients). This period brought misfortune to our family in huge multitudes. I topped in 8th standard, but by the time I reached 10th, I was burdened with a lot of family issues. My father frequented hospitals for medical reasons and in December (while my exams were supposed to happen in February), for the entire month I had to run our family shop with my brother (a hotel), as my father had a severe head injury. In our village or amongst my relatives and acquaintances nobody had even heard about NIT, IIT or such concepts before. Due to lack of awareness and knowledge sharing, I had not even the least idea about IIT or NIT. During this painful period, however, I still grappled to my limits to study as hard as I could. Adversity couldn’t break my will and I scored 89.5% in my 10th grade, irrespective of my severe circumstances. It was the highest in Sadiya Sub-Division and among top 10 scores in the entire district.

  My good score fetched me admission in Cotton College in Guwahati. But the adversity didn’t fade away, it continued to trouble us and my father was to be operated for tumor. As operation in Assam was risky, my uncle took him to Chennai and the operation went to be a success. But on the other hand, my father had to lose one kidney. We didn’t have the money to pay for his operation, but my grandfather somehow arranged the money by selling his land. Under such a situation, I didn’t want to be a burden on my family anymore. Therefore, I requested one of my friends studying in Dibrugarh to search for any institute which offers free education based on good academic records.

Then Gurukul Juniour College happened and they provided me free seat on the condition that I will have to prove myself at studies. While pursuing studies here, I came to know about coachings, entrance exams for various profiles and so on. But given my economic condition, I could not even think of private coaching. In class 11, I was pretty sure to get some work on my own and hoped to get a seat in Assam Engineering Colleges. Having heard many a times about how tough and challenging it is to crack IIT/JEE, I always thought of IIT/JEE as something beyond my reach and capability. Moreover, I didn’t have the good fortune to undergo the biggest guarantee of cracking IIT/JEE – a private coaching. Still at Gurukul I used to practice some JEE problems on my own and my faculty members too at times helped me in that. But it was not enough, it didn’t have the JEE approach and standard. This was the ripe time when God smiled at me and said, “Your effort should meet some opportunity” and hence I came to know about Indian OIL Super 30 in Jorhat. Earlier I was of the view that it has its presence in Bihar only. As I knew a little more about it, about free residential coaching, my heart passionately started beating for it. While thinking to appear for it after my 12th, I decided to somehow give it a try while I was in 11th. I felt extremely lucky when I got to know that I have cleared it and have been called for an interview. On the other hand, around this time only I had also applied for NERIST – a premiere institute in North East. I cracked the entrance with Rank 1 while on the other hand I got selected for Super 30 also. Having in dilemma for quite some time, I eventually decided to opt for OIL India Super 30, which happens to be close to my college in Dibrugarh.

 Initially it was a feel good factor at Super 30, but soon the picture emerged very clearly telling me that you need to give sweat and blood, sleepless nights to make it to IIT. The training at Super 30 taught me that we need to complete 2 years syllabus in just a few months. Regular classes and tests helped me learn various problem solving techniques and higher order problems/concepts that weren’t taught in my college. At the same  time, I needed to prepare for my board exams and my college expected me to be in top 10 ranks. Pressure was very high, but I didn’t give up. I was primarily prepared for JEE and secondarily for NIT. I would like to mention Yadav Sir (Maths), Alam Sir (Chemistry) and Damodar Sir (Physics),
who would help us in advance level problems solving and concepts. After appearing for my board exams, I had to prepare for JEE Advance.
I studied hard (could have studied much harder), solved previousyears’ papers, problem solving etc. 19th June, when our results wereannounced, was a big day for me and some of my friends at Super 30, as we made it to IIT. The joy of my family and relatives knew no bounds, as I was the first one in entire Sadiya to get a seat at IIT. I opted for IIT Madras, Civil Engineering. And with the help of CSRL and OIL India, today I am here at  IITMadras, a boy from a lower middle class, economically challenged family from a remote, underdeveloped place where nobody is even aware of  anything like IIT, JEE or NIT. This became possible because of myparents and family’s unconditional support and love, Super 30 run by CSRL and OIL India combined by my hard work. But I feel that the journey has just begun and that I have to go a long way.Open publish panel