Nirmoy Modok. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Alipurduar, June 12: The 18-year-old always knew that he would be among the first 100, but ranking fifth in the Joint Entrance Examination (engineering) was a “pleasant shock”.

Nirmoy Modok of Jitpur High School attributes his success to his teachers. “I didn’t need any private tuition for JEE. I knew I would do well, maybe come even within 100, but this has been a pleasant shock,” said Nirmoy at his Bholardabri residence today.

Nepal Modok, a cloth merchant, said he had never interfered with his son’s decision to study engineering.

“I don’t have to tell any of my sons to study. Rather we always coax them to put away their book at night and get a few hours of sleep,” said the proud father. Younger son Sunandan is a student of Class X.

Nirmoy’s favourite subject had always been mathematics. “I want to study electronics and telecommunication in Jadavpur University. My teachers provided all help. In HS I scored 426 and had mainly concentrated on JEE.”

The breaks that Nirmoy took between studies were spent in listening to songs and watching television.

“We have only the national channel for we did not want our children to be distracted from studies,” said Nepal.

Nirmoy said he was very sad when he scored only 721 out of 800 in the Madhyamik Examination.

“But now I am satisfied,” he added. Pradeep Kumar Bhowmik, the headmaster of Jitpur High School, said Nirmoy has made the institution proud. “This year 18 of our students appeared for HS in the science stream and 17 were successful,” he added.