Prologue
29th June 2022
AOS Academy
"Koi baat nahi... It's your first day. But always remember the aim with which you have joined here."
I touched her feet, clutching my physics book, and stepped out. I was already late, and the rain hadn't made it any easier. It was pouring heavily, and I managed to catch a bus nearly twenty minutes after the class had already begun.
I got down at Shilp Chowk and dashed through the flooded streets toward the academy. But as they say, when it rains, it pours.
Some seniors informed me that the 11th standard lectures were held at Kamdhenu. Relying on Google Maps, I walked through the rain—soaked and clueless until I finally reached my destination.
In the elevator, I ran into Professor Sunny Singh, my math faculty member. Luckily, he too had arrived late due to the rain. Asking me my name, he tapped my shoulder, smiled, and showed me the way to our classroom.
At that point, I was only glad that I hadn't missed any part of the lecture, and somehow, despite being new to Logarithms and the classroom, I was one of the most active students in the room.
I was placed in Batch 2, which included both JEE and NEET students. Initially, I had very little interaction with anyone. Strangely enough, it was my WhatsApp username, 'Tanish Bhai', that introduced me. Some people had initially assumed Bhai was my surname.
I had only three friends in the beginning — Paresh, Sushant, and Sanjana D, who was also part of my 10th standard batch back in school. Besides them, I occasionally ran into Achintya — the third member of our school's F.R.I.E.N.D.S gang. Interestingly, he too had joined AOS, but he was placed in Batch 1.
As history had it, Batch 1 was always considered the elite. That reputation remained. Our batch, on the other hand, was noisy, chaotic, and often a nightmare for the faculty. There were very few serious aspirants in those early days. And even if there were, they were hard to spot.
Whispers filled the room the moment a teacher turned their back to write on the board. The comparisons to Batch 1 were endless and exhausting. Their brilliance only magnified our shortcomings. Every other lecture ended in a pep talk or a motivational speech—but it rarely made a dent, especially among the NEET aspirants sitting at the back, busy whispering and gossiping.
By August, our test series began—and so did my downfall. My scores never crossed the three-digit mark after the first test. I felt too ashamed to even share the results with my parents. But my father never stopped supporting me. He kept encouraging me, saying I'd do better next time.
In October, Paresh was transferred to Batch 1. And with that, something in him shifted. He started acting differently, and soon, Sushant and I drifted away from him. By November, rumors started circulating that Tejas and I might be sent to B1 as well.
"Hard work pays off," said Sameer Sir—our physics teacher, mentor, and the very owner of the academy.
Initially, I wasn't ready to leave my batch. It was said that B1 wasn't just better in academics—they were ahead of us in everything. And among the many wonders of Batch 1, there were the four girls who were always seen together. A group, a mystery—and soon, an important part of my story.
_________________________________________________