The First Test: When Reality Struck After Orientation
Almost a week had passed since the first reshuffling test, and we were finally allotted our batches. Mriganka and I landed in Batch O1—odd ranks got O1, and even ranks were sent to E1. So, Nimesh went to E1. (Remember the reshuffling story from the last blog?) We were both buzzing with excitement—the journey we had been imagining for months was about to take shape. Our routine was pretty simple. At 7 AM sharp, Mriganka’s mom would wake him up for school. Once he was done with his bathroom saga, it was my turn to crawl out of bed. We had only one bathroom in our 2BHK flat in Munirka, so there was always a good 10–15 minutes of shouting involved to drag Mriganka out. By 7:45 , we were done with breakfast and on our way to Lal Bahadur Shastri School —a 10–15-minute walk from our home. I hated walking to school, but Mriganka and both our moms strongly opposed the idea of wasting ₹50 every day on an auto. So, I had to surrender. The first class of the day was chemistr...