Trials of being a renaissance man in the 21st century - Rajat Garg, NMIMS Mumbai
It was in my school, that I read the poem Ozymandias by P.B. Shelley which impacted my whole life, CBSE students will relate to this. I was fascinated by the idea of transcending time. I came from a small town and my school was also not particularly resource rich in terms of academics and co-curricular activities. I knew that I had to achieve something different in life, but I had no roadmap as to how to achieve it. I was in a position where I didn’t know what I don’t know. All this while, I had the utmost support of my father, who always pushed me to defy society and believe in myself, a blessing to have for a kid with social anxiety. This led me to take admission in the prestigious Ramjas College, University of Delhi, for pursuing English Literature. I thought it would help me to understand the context that I live in. During one of the interviews for a college society, I was laughed out of the room because I wasn’t able to stitch two words together to make a coherent sentence in English. That incident made me withdraw inwards and develop an inferiority complex. It was then, my father told me a story about one of his failures in life and how it was only with sheer determination that he overcame it. I took his advice to heart and decided that it’s time to act.
