There are projectors in the classrooms, everyone speaks in English, people look different, they are so open-minded ... And you can take second, third helpings of food and even order for eggs in the canteen. The toilet even has a flush.
When I told my father I had got into IIT, he said, 'Theek hai. Acchha hai (OK, Good).' He was happy that I would be able to earn money soon.
Mummy is angutha chhap (illiterate). She said you must be doing something worthwhile if you are going so far away to study. I think she was happy just to watch my brother and me being interviewed on TV. (Brijesh's brother Raju, 18, secured the 167th rank in the IIT entrance exam and is at IIT-Kharagpur.)
My parents may not understand the significance of getting into an IIT, but they have always been supportive. We are five brothers and one sister, all good students.
In Class 5, our teacher in the village school told my father, 'Eat just one meal a day, wear one pair of clothes, but educate your children.' That's the funda my father held out to.
In my entire extended family, only we children are educated. All my cousins, elders in the family... everyone is illiterate.
Going to a Navodaya Vidyalaya was the turning point of my life. I too would have been a Chhotu, Motu, Pinku, working in a dhaba, but for Navodaya and my maths teacher Sunil Mishra.
I was in Class 5, late for class that day. Mishra Sir was solving a Simple Interest problem on the blackboard. The answer was wrong and I told him so. He said I should go to a better school, a Navodaya Vidyalaya, but warned me there was very little time to prepare for the entrance exam.
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