The 1994 SSC examination result was declared in the last week of June. Everyone expected me to be in the Nagpur division merit list as I was ranked 19 in the very challenging Nagpur Talent Search examination in std 9th and also had stood first in the school in the high school scholarship exam in std 7th. But unfortunately it was not to be. Fell well short of the target by a big three percent gap! I almost knew this would happen since during the exams I was really sick and due to which my writing speed suffered and I could not even complete a couple of papers in time.
Anyway, our family had decided to relocate to Pune, and so just in a couple of days we landed in Pune and made a beeline for admissions at various junior colleges in ‘The Oxford of the East’. At that time there was no centralized admission process. So we had to hectically criss-cross the various corners of the city for filling up separate application forms for each college we were interested in. Although we had not done extensive research on the colleges we knew that SP, Fergussion, Modern, Garware and Wadia and were the top five junior colleges in Pune for science stream. After narrowly missing the opportunity to get admitted to the prestigious Fergusson college by just 1-2 marks, I decided to get admission to Modern College, Shivajinagar, Pune.
It was the first time I had been out of school after 10-12 years and was really curious about ‘college life’. The concept of ‘lectures’, ‘optional attendance’, no ‘class teacher’, ‘canteen’ etc. were very new to me and I was quite intrigued by them initially. This sudden huge ‘freedom’ felt like a very different world to me. At the same time, I missed the ‘small town’ feeling of a school where everyone knew everyone including all teachers and the Principal, and even students of all other junior and senior classes. But here in initial days I felt like a fish out of water, an anonymous face in a huge sea of students! Also in school I was ‘the bright student’, whereas here I was just one among hundreds of ‘brightest’ students.
But this was just in initial days. Afterwards when we did lots of practicals in the labs, where there is a much closer interaction between students and lecturers/professors, and even among students, people started knowing me much better and I made lot of good friends. Even many lecturers/professors came to know my brilliance and they started respecting me quite a bit. Also I used to promptly answer a lot of academic questions in the lectures/practicals that professors generally ask during the course of teaching. So through this also, I became one of the favorite and popular students in the class. Many highly meritorious students who came from non-english medium schools used to be absolutely amazed at my fluent English speaking skills, and used to ask if I studied throughout in a convent school, I would say I didn’t!
Modern college is a really nice institution. All lecturers/professors are very friendly, enthusiastic and had a good sense of humour. Generally ‘simple living, high thinking’ kind of crowd takes admission in Modern college. You won’t generally see very fashionable or ultra-modern or cosmopolitan type of gang here(although I wished there was). But yes, you can see very studious, hard-working, simple, good-natured, humble and focussed people. In a way I feel that this indirectly helped me. In those days I was preparing very hard for IIT-JEE. So it helped me to have detachment from the mundane world and have a single-minded focus on my studies without getting distracted. It helps you to create that feeling of detachment – almost like a monk/yogi who is doing tough Sadhana/Tapasya to attain special Siddhis!(Just like Buddha had done before attaining enlightenment or Shirdi Sai Baba had done for twelve years before ‘appearing’ in Shirdi etc.). Later on I realized that learning this detachment can be very valuable in real life where you have to do all your duties being in the world but at the same time being a sanyasi intrinsically, i-e, externally appearing attached while being internally detached. Only through this detachment, you can grow and make progress in the spiritual field(Adhyatma) and can grasp the true meaning hidden in tough metaphysical texts like Bhagavad Geeta, Sai Satcharitra etc. And for those who can understand Adhyatma at a young age, mastering touch technical as well as management topics is not a big deal at all! Of course, there can be many pathways to success in academic, professional as well as corporate life. But the success system based on spiritual teachings and metaphysical understanding of life can be very powerful and long lasting. It can help you sail over the most difficult situations in all walks of life later on!
But this does not mean that Modern College crowd austerely focuses on studies and does not have any extra-curricular activities. We had a very active all-round participation in all kinds of sports, drama competitions, arts related competitions etc etc. Modern college definitely has a good standard and quality of education comparable to the best in the city. It has superb, well-equipped laboratories, a nice well-stocked library, a good gym and in those days it was extremely spacious with a huge play-ground. In this institute you feel like having a family type of ambiance and always ‘at home’.(Of Fergusson college is the numero uno, but after that, Modern College is an excellent choice for junior college science admissions!).