For six years, Jaswant's life revolved around one goal: becoming a doctor.
Like millions of students across India, he pinned his hopes on the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the highly competitive exam that determines entry into medical colleges. He studied for years, sat the exam four times and watched friends move ahead while he remained stuck in the same cycle of preparation, expectations and disappointment.
Today, at 24, he has left that dream behind.
He is pursuing a Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), working at a startup and building a new future. But the years he spent preparing for NEET continue to shape how he thinks about ambition, failure and success.
"I spent six years preparing for it."
A Dream Bigger Than The Family
Jaswant first heard about NEET in Class 11.
Until then, medicine was not even part of the conversation at home.
"Until Class 10, I didn't even know what NEET was. My brother was preparing for IIT, so all the books I had seen until then were engineering books."
His family came from a village in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where higher education itself was rare.
"Back there, if someone passed Class 10, people would start calling them 'Master Ji'."
When he told relatives he was preparing for NEET, many assumed he was already on his way to becoming a doctor.
"Many people thought that the moment I said I was preparing, I had already become a doctor."
The expectations grew quickly.
According to his brother, the family's social standing became linked to Jaswant's ambition.
"During my sister's wedding, it was used as a matter of prestige. One son was an engineer and the other was studying medicine."
Some relatives even exaggerated his progress.
"People were saying I was already in the second year of medical college."
For a teenager just beginning his preparation, those expectations created a burden that would stay with him for years.
"People were saying all this already, and I kept thinking: what will happen if I don't make it?"
The Years That Followed
Preparing for NEET became a full-time existence.
The long hours did not come naturally at first.
"At first, studying for long hours was difficult. In the beginning, my focus would break after two or three hours."
Over time, the exam consumed more and more of his life.
"After a point, I stopped thinking about how many hours I should study and how many I shouldn't."
His family saw the changes before he did.
"For a week or even ten days at a time, his eyes would be swollen, his face puffed up. He was irritated and constantly on edge."
Looking back now, they understand the emotional strain he was carrying.
"Now we understand why all of that was happening."
Watching Others Succeed
One of the most difficult parts of preparing for competitive exams is watching people around you move ahead.
Jaswant studied alongside friends whose scores were often similar to his own.
Eventually, they secured medical seats.
"One of them got into medical college before me, in 2023."
"Another got in later, in 2025."
The comparisons were unavoidable.
"It made me feel that the potential was there."
He remembers teaching one of his friends difficult physics concepts.
"I used to sit and teach him topics like rotational motion, and he got through."
The success of others became a constant reminder of what he had not achieved.
"For a whole year, it felt like nothing but trauma."
When Failure Follows You Home
The hardest reminders were not online or in conversations.
They were sitting in his own room.
Years of preparation had left him with sacks full of books.
"I had three large sacks full of books."
Even after deciding to move on, he could not bring himself to touch them.
"It took me two years."
Whenever he looked at the books, he was transported back to the disappointment of those years.
"Whenever I looked at them, all those feelings came rushing back."
Only recently did he finally sell most of them.
"I finally sold them just a few days ago."
A few still remain.
"I think one or two books are still left."
The Cost Of A Dream
Looking back, Jaswant says NEET preparation changed more than his career plans.
It affected his health.
"My health suffered because I gained a lot of weight."
"When I started, I was slim."
Years of sitting and studying took a toll on his fitness.
"Sitting for long hours became a habit."
His social life also shrank.
"I wasn't able to talk to girls much anymore."
As preparation intensified, friendships and conversations outside academics faded away.
"Your social interactions become very limited."
Eventually, he found himself disconnected from almost everything except the exam.
"You stop caring about anything else. You just walk away and go back to studying."
The Mental Health Toll
Repeated attempts brought repeated pressure.
"It affects your mental health. It affects it a lot."
Each year, more friends and classmates succeeded, making the question harder to ignore.
"Why isn't it happening for me?"
The frustration was amplified by the fact that he consistently performed well in mock tests.
"I used to do very well in mock tests."
But on exam day, things changed.
"When it came to the actual exam, I don't know what happened."
He believes anxiety played a major role.
"I think I just became nervous."
The disappointment was particularly difficult because he had always been a strong student.
"He was the topper of his school."
Success had once felt inevitable. NEET challenged that belief.
Starting Again
Eventually, Jaswant made the difficult decision to stop.
Because he had studied mathematics alongside biology, he was able to pivot into a different academic path.
Today, he is pursuing a BCA degree.
"I still have two semesters left before I finish my degree."
He is also working at a startup and exploring opportunities outside medicine.
For his family, accepting that decision was not easy.
"My family was living a dream. That dream was that their son was preparing to become a doctor."
His brother says the family consciously chose to support him through the transition.
"If you stand by one person and support them, the people criticising them will eventually fall silent."
Life Beyond NEET
Today, Jaswant does not see those six years as wasted.
The experience changed how he views ambition and hard work.
"You develop that hustler mentality. You realise that if you want to achieve something, you have to work relentlessly for it."
Most importantly, it changed how he thinks about failure.
For students caught in the cycle of competitive exams, his message is simple:
"People should always try to pursue their dreams."
But he also believes that knowing when to move on is just as important.
"And if it feels like it's not working out, that doesn't mean everything is over. There are still other options in life that a person can try."
For years, Jaswant believed his future depended on a single exam.
Now, he knows that life is much bigger than one result.
