A Journey from Scarcity to Stethoscope

Aiyan Gulzar 

 “The story of NEET is not only about merit and ranks. It is also about inequality, sacrifice and the silent determination of students who carry entire families’ expectations into the examination hall.”

Every year, in the race of NEET, we hear the stories of the toppers, the coaching institutes, and students with the highest scores. What we don’t hear enough about are those who studied along with the toppers, whose names were in the same class or caste, looking not only to pass the exam but to also shoulder their family’s expectations. I attended one of the best and most expensive NEET coaching institutes in the valley, with good teachers, good study material and a competitive atmosphere. What really opened up my eyes to this career path were the students from poor and weaker economic backgrounds, and how differently and with what intensity they prepared for the exam.

When I moved from my village to Srinagar after Class 10, my world expanded. I met people from different parts of the valley, some were from north Kashmir and some from south. I found students with different economic conditions. Some came from those families for whom paying coaching fees and hostel rent literally means cutting down on their household expenses. Some lived in double sharing rooms to minimize rent. Some managed food, travel and books on very limited monthly budgets. Sitting beside them in the same classroom while solving the same physics problems, I began to understand that the NEET journey is not the same for everyone.

For a lot of students from economically weaker families, NEET isn’t just an exam, it’s their chance to change the direction of the whole family’s life. Though most of us are studying to reach our objectives and start a career, they had a far greater urgency in their studies. I found students who could not afford to buy multiple reference books but knew NCERT lines word by word, for them NCERT is a bible. I saw students who used the same old notebook for months.

What really caught my observation was the relationship of these students with time. The privileged nature of some of these students, like mine at times too, meant that several priceless hours of theirs went over phones or procrastinating around revision time. But most of these students from a backward class treated time as money, which quite obviously they couldn’t afford to waste. They would attend every lecture with full attention, revise on that very day, and ask their doubts without any fear since they knew they could not afford to lag behind on that. Every lecture for them was an investment.

Another major issue I learned from this story is the idea of having discipline without any kind of luxury. NEET requires a quiet study environment, which provides a sense of having your individual space to study. It is very difficult for students to prepare in noisy rooms, yet they still somehow manage to keep their focus. Some of these students even woke up before Fajar to study, with the other one sleeping on the bed. Another factor related to their preparations is the issue of their financial positioning. For example, while other students might have bought various books like Cengage, N Awasthi, HC Verma, etc. These NEET students had to selectively choose what they thought they needed. Indeed, for many of this group of people, they had to heavily rely on NCERT books, notes from their coaching, and even books from their friends. Certainly, this seemed to create a sense of cooperation instead of competition among these people. For example, they even formed a kind of support system among themselves.

And emotional pressure, as I had quickly come to realize, had been much heavier upon their shoulders as they attempted to overcome the hurdle of exam pressure and were aware of all the sacrifices that their family was making for them. For instance, these students would come from families that were laborers, farmers, and daily wage laborers, and it would have been a huge burden and incentive for them to know that thousands of rupees were being spent on their education. For example, recall that my friend had told me how, “I just can’t give up because everyone back home thinks that I will end up a doctor.”

But at the same time, I realized that strength comes from struggling. I remember that whenever the test results were not satisfactory, most of these privileged students were discouraged. But I noticed that those who encountered financial problems were able to cope with these feelings of discouragement in no time. For these students, a lack of success in life was nothing new since they were always forced to get their lives together. This is because they were well aware that even attempting to quit was not an option.

Working with them also made me realize my approach to my preparations as well. I learned to value what I already have, to utilize my time well, and to take my studies seriously. From them, I learned that in achieving success in NEET, it is not the persons who have the most resources who succeed; rather, it is the ones who are committed, dedicated, and mentally tough who succeed. Having comfort comes with having resources, but only if one is prepared to work hard and be mentally tough as well.

I also felt that while the basic prerequisite for any student who wishes to be a NEET did not lie in their possession of expensive gadgets or books, it lay in their having set their goal in life, being strict, being well coached, and having an indigenous system of support. Most obviously, of course, there was the need to believe, believe that their past did not preordain their future. I found that those who came from the poorest of backgrounds fought alongside those who were clearly best, not because they had more to give, but because they would fight against defeat itself.

Today, every time I think of the journey of the NEET exam, I do not recall the formulas or the diagrams or the mock tests anymore. I also think of the silent determination of those students who did not study as comfortably as other students, but studied with hope. I learned from their struggles the true meaning of the competition with which I was surrounded. I learned that to become a doctor, it is not sufficient to be intelligent, one must have perseverance, sacrifices, and determination.

Lastly, it is important to note that NEET is never just an entrance. For all the poor students around the world, it is a passage, a passage from one world of poverty to another of affluence, from one world of scarcity to another of service and respect. And every time the student flips through the pages of a book, every time he or she studies an additional night, he or she is moving forward, moving forward not only for them, but also for all the waiting crowds back home.

Author can be mailed at Paulayan7544@gmail.com