Good evening, everyone.  So the idea initially was to have an interactive session. But since I’ve been asked to give a small talk, every word that I’m going to speak now, I think for the first time, it’s going to be as impromptu, as honest and as heartfelt as it can be. 

Because previously we would always know that we have to give a speech. We would have a rough skeleton in mind.  

This was my third attempt. As Anodi has already spoken about how it’s very important to own up to your failures. My biggest learning has been the same. In fact, if I were to go and tell my old self that zebra, you know what? Everybody, all of us, comes with the same idea that we must clear it.

 In our first attempt, I went with a similar idea. But if I were to go and tell myself that it won’t happen the first time, it won’t even happen the second time, it’ll happen the third time, I would not have given this exam. Because considering the family and the community that I come from, it’s actually very startling to be 24 25 at home and studying all kinds of questions that .

people ask, all kinds of uncertainty that we go through as individuals. But today, as I stand here in my third attempt, securing All India 62nd, I would not have had it any other way. I don’t think I would have been the same person had it cleared in my first attempt.

I don’t think I would have been the same person had it cleared  in the second attempt. But today, after four years, three, three and a half years of struggle, I’m more comfortable in the person that I am, more comfortable in my own weakness, in my own strengths, 

and in the individual that I am. And as I stand here today, I would like to thank Virginias, firstly, for being such an important part of my journey. I was a part of the Test Series program and it benefited me a lot because I was someone who was in Hyderabad studying and I chose not to go to Delhi. I wanted to stay with my family.

 So visionary for me, was the only way I could keep myself on track in this madness, that all of you are a part of it or soon going to be a part of it.  

A couple of days ago, there was a quote that I came across, and it’s something that I would like to share. It said it went something like,  just give me a second.