His journey to the National Defence Academy

I know I am guilty of keeping you all waiting for such a long time for the next post and I am really sorry for that. I would say I had my reasons but they dont matter as I understood from a quote from Deepak Chopra, a spiritual guru who said in one of his articles that
if you miss on things that you wanted to do on a particular day/time then may be it wasnt so important for you. The motivation and commitment comes from within and has no parallels

The above summary of the article also forms the basis of Mohit's passion for the forces. There was no other job he wanted to do. It had to be NDA.

Mohit passed out from DPS Ghaziabad in 1995. He had a pretty good overall percentage, 82% which in those times, was a very high standard grade and he could have gotten admission in any college in DU or where he wanted but his eyes were set somewhere else.

I must confess, people coming from a non-defence background do not know much about the forces and the way of life there and the path to take to be a part of them but Mohit was crystal in his thoughts.

Mohit wrote his NDA written exam sometime in April 1995, NDA exams happen twice in an year but giving the one in December would mean Mohit would lose out on 6 months seniority in case he got selected, which for some reasons he was pretty sure of.
The results take some time to come and as any family would, my parents forced him to take admission in an Engineering college in Amravati University, Sant Gajanan Maharaj College of Engineering and Technology, Shegaon along with one of his best friends Ankush. Both of these guys were packed off to Shegaon where they started their course in Electronics and Communications.

Mohit was not keen no engineering and thus he would always call up home to enquire if any communication came in from the UPSC who conducts these exams. Our answer was negative till in July-August we got a letter from UPSC that Mohit had cleared the exam and was supposed to report to Bhopal for his Services Selection Board (SSB) interview. This obviously was a great surprise to us since my parents were more keen on having Mohit finish his engineering and take the path which I had taken, although I had 2 failed SSBs to add to my resume :-)

Papa called up Mohit and told him that he had cleared the exams and he was to report to Bhopal but also made it clear that the family wanted him to continue his engineering and forget about the forces. My dad and mom were pretty strong about this intention and Mohit was categorically told to forget about NDA.
Well, Mohit was not someone who could be told what needs to be done and how, even at the age of 17 his thoughts and ambitions did not seem to get affected by anyone even if they were his parents.

Sometime in September 1995, Mohit asked the letter to be sent to him without revealing his intentions and Papa unknowingly sent it across to Shegaon. Now, Mohit armed with the call letter got his bags packed and got a ticket to Bhopal which was not very far from Nagpur, the nearest station from his college. He called us up from the station and told us that he is off to Bhopal for 5 days for his SSB and we were speechless. We wished him luck but somewhere deep down in our sub conscience we didnt want him to join the forces. Well that proved to be just a unjust hope in the end.

After 5 days we got an excited, elated and obviously very happy Mohit calling up and telling he had cleared the SSB and has been recommended for the forces by the board. Since he was suffering from Jaundice and was underweight he has been temporarily rejected in the Medical and has been given 1 month time to recover and report to the Delhi Cantonment Army Hospital for re-examination else he shall be rejected and will need to comeback after 6 months to the medical board.

Mohit didnt want to waste any time and he was pretty clear that it is now that he would like to join NDA else he shall be 6 months junior to the guys he gave the exams with and would not like to go that way. Such clarity of thoughts as 17 years.

Mohit came back home and consulted family members who were doctors and found out the way to reduce Jaundice levels to acceptable limits and increase weight in 1 month flat. I am not sure how many people would believe but Mohit used to have a dozen bananas with half a litre of milk in his breakfast. Another dozen bananas thru out the day and would munch on Paneer for the rest of the day. To ensure he was fit he would cycle down from our house in Sahibabad to Ghaziabad and sometimes even to places in Delhi just to make sure he has the stamina and fitness to go thru.

The more astoundingly unbeleviable part is that Mohit increased 6 Kgs in 1 month and was ready for his medical board examination.

I guess when God almighty sees such passion and commitment he relents as well and Mohit got thru the medical and got his joining orders to report to NDA in January 1996.

I still remember Mohit's reaction then, it was not even closed to excited as kids of his age would. There was a certain calmness which showed sublime but exuberant confidence levels, as if he knew that was what was going to happen and he knew it all the way.

Mohit never went back to Shegaon, not even to collect his stuff or get a TC or even his caution money, Papa was assigned this task and he had no choice.
From then on Mohit lived like a Maharaja and waited eagerly to join his dream destination, feeling victorious by doing what no one in his entire extended family dreamt of doing themselves (including me) or expected Mohit to do.

The rest as they say is proverbial history, some accounts which I have, I shall share in due time.

Till then its hats off to this man, the only "man" I have till now known in my life.