The attention was overwhelming. It was a new experience,” smiled

Dewang Agarwal on Wednesday. The Purbachal boy had scripted history the day before when he registered a perfect score in the ISC examination jointly with a student from Bangalore. The news spread like wildfire and he became the cynosure of all eyes and cameras.

When he logged into the Board’s website on the laptop at home, he had to take a second look to believe what he was seeing. “I shouted to my mother who was in the next room. Soon there were tears of joy in her eyes. She is my guru. She taught me the alphabets,” said the topper who was coached by his mother Swati till the middle school years. “It is my greatest joy to see my parents be so proud of me.”

The rest of the day passed in a whirlwind of congratulatory messages, interviews and mithai boxes. “Today has been more relaxing,” he laughs.

“Work, be sincere and be your own competition,” is his advice to students from future batches. Apart from JEE coaching at an institute, he had three private tutors for English, Hindi and physics. Asked about the focus on the languages, he says if he takes a subject he wants to do well in it. Which is why despite getting 100 per cent and Hindi not figuring in his top three subjects, he has sent his Hindi paper for re-evaluation. “I do not want to share the marks I have got,” he says, looking momentarily downcast.

Though he has appeared for JEE (Main), Dewang is now keeping his higher education options open. “I like both computer science and mathematics. Let’s see,” is all he would share about his future plans.