PART A My father was born to a farmer. My mother was also birthed into a humble family of farmers. It is no wonder, then, that both of them spent a majority of their childhood and some years of their adult life in a village with little to no access to basic facilities such as sanitation or healthcare. My parents moved us to Delhi in early 1990s and put their heart and soul into our education. They built a strong foundation for me and my brother.
Their efforts didn't go in vain though. My elder brother graduated from IIT Hyderbad with a CGPA of 9.4 and got a job in an elite software company. I also put in a lot of hard work in the initial few months of undergrad but somewhere lost my way in the second semester. The situation got worse by the end of the term and I failed in two subjects. The failure came as a rude shock to me. I had always managed to do well in life - academically. I remember sitting in my room in tears when my father walked in. He consoled me and motivated to me push harder. He also told me how my grandfather had gifted him a small watch when he had got his first job. He told me when the time came he would give me something similar. By god's grace I got placed in a good company in my final year of engineering.
When I came home that day (after going through multiple rounds of selection), my father walked in and handed my a gift bag. It was white formal shirt from Louis Philippe. He asked me to carry it with me with sense of pride. That Louis Philippe shirt still sits in my cupboard 3 years later and makes my heart well with pride whenever I look at it.
PART B I was diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes at the age of 9. It’s a medical condition that imposes strict restrictions on my diet, exercise and other aspects of my life. Needless to say, managing the condition is a tedious task and takes its toll on me physically as well as mentally.
In the past 16 years, Diabetes has thrown a lot of stuff at me - I have dragged myself into a hospital on a bitter cold Delhi night when no one was at home, I have gone into more hypoglycemic shocks than I can count and I have collapsed on my legs at a party. But as I write this answer, my heart swells with pride because every time life has thrown something at me, I have managed to rise up again as a better and a stronger individual.
I don’t want to come across as a subject of pity. But my health condition is something that requires a lot of patience and determination. There are a lot of days when I can’t find the motivation to get on with my day or when I feel tempted to make an excuse and sit back. On almost all these days I find something to make myself get up and get going. And that, in my opinion, is perseverance. Perseverance, to me, is the ability to keep going in the face of adversity. Perseverance is the what prevents you from quitting in times of extreme hardship. And through Diabetes I have persevered. I have persevered through countless instances of fatigue. I have persevered through my blood glucose fluctuations and I have preserved through the emotional toll of it all. My health condition is something I overcome on a daily basis and it has made me a stronger individual.