My mother never threw away things like these. Before discarding anything, she always asked us to look through it first. So I kept almost all of it. Going through the folder now, I can see what kind of student I was.

School

  • Best Student award, 2004-05
  • Best Student award again, at a school day in February 2006
  • Krishna contest on the pastimes of Lord Krishna, March 2004: a 'B' grade
Colourful Krishna contest certificate awarding a B grade, with the name, school and signature blocked out.
Krishna contest, 8 March 2004. 'B' grade. My name, my school and the signature are blocked out.
  • Written exam on the student life of Swami Vivekananda, December 2005: participated
  • Chef of the School contest by Parle, 2005-06: 4th prize. I sent a recipe for Mohan bhog, adjusted so it could be sandwiched between two small Monaco biscuits. Mohan bhog on biscuits.
Parle Monaco Chef of the School certificate for 4th prize, with the name and signature blocked out.
Chef of the School, 2005-06. 4th prize for Mohan bhog between Monaco biscuits. The class reads VIII because the school entered me under 8th standard; I was in 10th. My name and the signature are blocked out.

Pre-university

  • State-level general knowledge competition, November 2006

College

  • Three workshops in 2010: memory and study skills, then body language and NLP, back to back. By then I had been memorising things for years. I signed up anyway.
  • A five-day workshop on CPLD-based system design, March 2011
  • A national-level technical symposium, April 2011: paper presentation, a technical quiz, and "Tech-Avadhana" - avadhana is a Sanskrit word for attentiveness, and the old art form built on it has a performer holding many questions in his head at once. 2nd prize in the quiz
  • A two-day workshop on embedded systems, April 2012

In school I was often first in class. But in mid-terms and finals I used to stumble: usually 4th or 5th, sometimes 2nd, rarely 1st. The folder says something similar. Best Student twice inside my own school, then a 'B' grade, a 4th prize, a 2nd prize outside it. First where they knew me, never quite first where they didn't. But always there.