He had aimed for a spot in the top 100 of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). When the NEET (UG) results came out on Saturday, the entire Sinha Chaudhuri family was delighted.
“My father and I were checking the results. I was still searching for my rank when I heard him scream. I certainly did not expect a top 20 rank,” laughs Rachit Sinha Chaudhuri, who has come 16th on the national merit list for admission to undergraduate medical courses.
That makes him the state topper as well. He has scored 670 out of 720. Earlier, he got 94.2 per cent (best of five) in his CBSE Class XII examination. The resident of Salua, near Chinar Park, in Rajarhat, made a strategic shift to Hariyana Vidya Mandir in Class XI. “Till Class X since Lower KG, he was in DPS Newtown. But he wanted to sit for NEET. Since the CBSE syllabus is more aligned with NEET, it made more sense to switch from ISC,” said his father, Sirshendu.
“The textbooks for NEET and CBSE are the same,” Rachit explained. Rachit’s father always inspired him to become a doctor. One overwhelming reason was his grandmother suffering from paralysis during his childhood. “Baba used to say: ‘Doctor holey Thammi ke bhalo kore dekhte parbi’. I knew that would be my chosen path since the time I was in Class IV.”
He liked both biology and botany in school. “I have a fascination for the human body. Botany has some career options but those do not appeal to me. Once I finish MBBS, I can figure out if I want to go for research,” he says.
Rachit had enrolled in a private coaching centre, which offered hybrid classes, besides going for private tuitions for chemistry and physics. “I also got help from school. Multiple sources of teaching meant I got a wider perspective on how the same problem can be solved. I used to absorb and retain a topic while it was being taught in class.
That way, I did not have to revise the same thing at home,” he says. He used to try to put in eight to 10 hours of study outside of tuition and school. “I had weekend classes at the coaching centre. So sometimes it went up to 14 hours.”
One person his father mentions with gratitude is “BB sir” — his physics teacher Bishwajit Barnwal. His coaching centre in Kasba had become Rachit’s second home as the teacher picked him for special attention.
“He would spend 10 hours or more twothree days a week in the coaching centre’s practice room appearing for mock tests and getting doubts cleared. BB sir did not charge extra for this. He also monitored his mock test scores and his mental well-being,” he said of the teacher who had even accompanied Rachit to the NEET examination centre at Hare School, along with his parents.
In the run-up to the finals, the entire family stayed away from social gatherings. And Rachit completely logged out of social media, so much so that his Instagram account got deactivated. “They must have thought it was a fake account as I rarely used it and was friends with so few people,” the 18-year-old says, adding with a laugh that his followers numbered less than 10.
Once the NEET examination was out of the way, he created a new account to get back into social circulation. He also has time now for his hobbies — cooking and baking. The storybooks are also out of the racks.
Rachit was doing well in the preparatory tests at his coaching centres. He used to weigh his chances on the basis of the scores he got in his mock tests. “On the basis of my scores then, it seemed I would get AIIMS Rishikesh.”
But with the rank he has achieved, he can dream bigger. “I think I should be getting AIIMS Delhi now. They have close to 40 seats for general category students,” he says.
He is not keen to name any local hospital among his options during coun- selling. “I have been studying in Bengal all my life. I want to explore the world outside now,” he says with a shrug.