IIT AND KOTA

Rajasthan’s Kota continues its winning streak in training students for success in pre-engineering and pre-medical college entrance tests Getting into an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) is harder than admission to America’s Ivy League: each year more than a million students take the entrance examination for a meagre 8,622 seats in the 16 IITs. It is equally difficult to get into country’s premier medical school: All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi has only 72 undergraduate seats and more than 500,000 students vie for it. Of course, there are more engineering and medical seats in the country, but IITs and AIIMS Delhi remain the most sought after. Almost one in every three youths who make it to these premier technical and medical schools are students from cram schools in Kota, a riverbank town 256 kilometres south of Jaipur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. Kota’s success in these entrance exams has been stuff of legend as the coaching bu...

When I was in 11th, on the new year night.. We made some plans which included lots of junk, coke and friends who were not allowed to stay the night at PG. We were all excited and were preparing and just having fun, when suddenly at 11:30pm our landlord  knocked on the door. We had to hide friends in almirahs and under the bed and after hiding....Stuff, I opened the door.. Turns out he came to  see if we were drinking or smoking, and if not, to call us down in his place to watch some new year show on TV. He never does that! or anything remotely like that.. so stunned, we accepted.. thinking that it'd only be for 10 or so minutes and we'd wish them happy new year and go back. But, when we tried to go back, he told us we can't make noise at all, and to just watch TV till 12:10 or something... It was hilarious.. He looked almost afraid of what we'd do to his house at 12..(previous residents weren't as 'nice' as us) but after talking a little, we went back w...

Chambal Garden, Kota Kota days were not the best days of my life but those days taught me biggest lesson in my  life. I passed out my 10th board examination from Gyan Niketan, Patna. I secured 90+ percentage in my 10th. My parents decided to send me to Kota to prepare for IIT.I gave the test for Bansal. I didn’t got through. Those were the days when there used to be 6-7 batches only. My parents sent me to Garg classes (they got one prepared for institutes).They left me at Kota and went back. I encountered quite a few things at Garg Classes.   1)  I was a boarding school kid. I studied in a boy’s school till then which has made me shy around people. I was very introvert at that time, couldn’t make any friends there. Most of the time I was alone and bored.   2)  I developed an inferiority complex from guys who were able to communicate with others very well.   3)  But on a better note I cleared entrance for both Bansal and Resonance.   4) ...

This might not be the most memorable or interesting but was made so by recalling and narrating it many times. I was sitting in the front row of classroom attending my 12th class  Inorganic Chemistry lecture . Though it was the topmost batch being taught by the best faculty around, I was never a studious creature and didnt really like that professor either. That resulted in creation of self entertainment by mocking the teacher or simply creating nuisance. Just one such day : Sir : "Hey XYZ, how were your marks in the recent exams" XYZ : "Not so good. Could have been avoided if not for those silly mistakes I did" Me (in a soft voice) : "Ye silly mistake kya hoti hai?" [I was referring to a dialogue by Bansal Sir in just one previous class. A1 batch people might understand] There was a lot of muttering and chattering going on in the classroom, so when I said it, I thought it would drown. But when I looked at the professor and his gaze was straight u...