I was in the eighth standard when I experienced my first love—just when I was crossing adolescence.
I still remember the day clearly. I had just recovered from a fever, and when returned , I had to take examination of mathematics paper. I entered the classroom and was completely clueless about the questions. A girl sitting behind me was someone whom I asked for help, but she ignored me completely. That moment marked the beginning of my first love story.
But this story was never really about her.
When my father came to pick me up from school, I told him that the examination had gone badly. At home, my grandfather asked, “How much do you think you will score?” I had no answer. When the results arrived, I had scored just 8 out of 50. As punishment, I was asked to stand outside the classroom.
That day while standing outside , I made a decision: I would not let this love story remain one sided and I am going to give all I have into this relationship.
My next step was to join extra classes with the same teacher whose test I had performed poorly in. Gradually, things began to improve, and I completed my final examination with a decent score. In ninth grade, my sister decided to teach me mathematics , around the same time, our mathematics teacher left the school, and I had stopped attending his extra classes . Then came another internal examination—and once again, I was asked to stand in the classroom.
This time, however, two students were asked to stand by then another mathematics teacher. The reason? I had scored 50 out of 50 in mathematics. But what happened next broke my heart. My mathematics teacher asked, “How did you manage to score this much?”. I understood very late why he had asked me that question , it was because I was never his favorite student.
The following year was my board-examination. Considering its importance, I decided to take tuition from the same mathematics teacher from eighth grade—the teacher who had once made me stand outside the classroom for performing poorly. Months passed, we moved from NCERT to R.S. Aggarwal and eventually to sample papers and test papers. My pre-board examination went well, and I appeared for the board examination with complete confidence.
During those three hours, I was deeply possessed by love for mathematics. When the results were announced, I had scored 98 out of 100. My friends went to meet our mathematics teacher, and he asked about me. “How did he score so much?” Once again I was hurt and I knew the reason behind the question, I was never his favorite student.
Then came the twelfth-grade board year—and this was when the real madness began.
While my friends and classmates were preparing for engineering entrance examinations, I had become completely immersed in mathematics. I thoroughly studied R.S. Aggarwal, R.D. Sharma, and K.C. Sinha written books, while leaving physics and chemistry almost untouched. Result , I had to re appear for board exam next year . However, when I later solved that year’s mathematics paper at home, I evaluated my score at exactly 92 marks.
You may think that this is where I finally stopped. But I didn’t.
I enrolled in a BCA programme, and during the first semester, I encountered mathematics once again. By then, I was addicted to solving mathematical problems. Topics such as advanced differential and integral calculus only strengthened my fascination. By the third month of the semester, I realized that I was unlikely to pass the other subjects because I had spent almost all my time studying mathematics. So, I stopped studying it . When the semester results arrived, I had scored 100 out of 100 in mathematics for the first time. That result confirmed what I already knew:
Yes, I was in love.
But once you realize that you are in love, you naturally want to discover what comes next. After scoring a perfect 100 in the first semester, a doubt began to trouble me: Was it a true love—or merely infatuation and I took that question to heart .
In the next semester, the syllabus included discrete mathematics. This time, the challenge was clear: I had to express everything I felt for mathematics. I can still recall the second-semester examination paper. As I sat in the examination hall, that same possessiveness returned. I wanted to prove myself once again.
The result was another perfect score—100 out of 100 in mathematics.
Ironically, that day this result brought my relationship with mathematics to an abrupt end because at that point, I felt I had very little left to give to this relationship anymore. I was also unsure where to take this love further. So, I moved on from mathematics to my next love whose story will be for next time.