SHILLONG: They wrote the exams in the shadow of widespread agitations interspersed with curfews.
The good tidings came in the shadow of a rampaging pandemic — toppers in the Higher Secondary School Leaving Certificate.
To say, therefore, that Komal Sharma of St. Anthony’s Higher Secondary School was over the moon after topping the commerce merit list on Thursday would be an understatement.
She is now looking forward to pursuing Chartered Accountancy (CA).
Komal beat Vinod Prajapat, her schoolmate, by the narrowest of margins — just a mark.
The second position holder also has CA in mind.
Eighth position holder, Varsha Agarwal, saw a silver lining in the COVID-19 cloud. “We are getting extra time to study”, she said while looking at her future as Company Secretary.
First position-holder in the science stream, Kaustab Chaudhury, said that he would be preparing for JEE slated for November. He intends to go for engineering.
He would have liked to go to BITS Pilani — Birla Institute of Technology and Science — but it is too expensive and hence will opt for IITs.
Like the others, those troubled days when it was time for the examinations had weighed heavily on his mind, but Chaudhury’s focus on the task at hand kept him going.
The second position holder, Anirban Das, said he was concentrating on his studies although there would be a small celebration. He intends to go for NEET and JEE.
Another second-position holder, Disha Chakraborty, said her friends and family had expected her to be in the merit list, and she was motivated to work towards it.
“Frankly, most of the time I was quite intimidated, but in the end I guess I stopped thinking about other things and decided to study as much as I could and do it to the best of my abilities. I never put pressure on myself and made sure I was studying only whenever I wanted to. I had a routine, but to be honest, I could not follow it properly. In the end I think my persistence helped me a lot. I aspire to become an ecologist someday”, she said.
The lone non-Anthonian was the joint fifth-position holder from Laban Bengalee Boys’ Higher Secondary School, Rituraj Deb, who said, “I worked hard and put in all the effort.”
He aims to pursue B.Tech in Computer Engineering. Commenting about the COVID-19 situation that has led to closure of all schools and colleges, he said that students should not be concerned much as the government has made all arrangements.
Kumar Ayan Sharma of Don Bosco College, Tura was the lone topper from Garo Hills who managed to bag the 3rd position by securing 439 marks in the Commerce stream.
Son of Businessman, Animesh Sharma and housewife Anita Sharma, Kumar now plans to pursue a degree in Business Administration from the Pandit Deen Dayal Petroleum University (PDDPU) in Ahmedabad.
Revealing the reason for his success, Kumar said that he studied for two hours each day and also took regular tuitions on Accountancy. Kumar also attributes his success to the frequent motivations of his grandfather and senior most Advocate from Tura, Jugal Kishore Sharma, who he says is his inspiration and role model.
