Part 1
It was 2020. I was 18 and about to get married — very normal in the village I come from, Semda, where most people depend on farming and hardly anyone talks about higher education. Then Covid hit and the marriage got postponed… and somehow, in my drop year, I cracked IIT. the marriage was cancelled and I joined Biotech at IIT Delhi
And this is where the our story begins.
When I entered IIT, I wanted to be a creator — like MKBHD, Technical Guruji, or those IIT vloggers whose JEE-era videos I consumed endlessly. IIT exposed me to a world I had never seen, and as a total social animal, I had friends everywhere and life peaked for a while.
So honestly, academics never excited me (especially biotech). Creativity did.
I was giving exams till 3rd sem, and then life flipped. I got pulled into extremely unhealthy addictions — the kind that drain your days, ruin routines, and make even filling a water bottle feel like effort. And this is the first time I’m admitting it publicly. (I am talking about severe addiction, maybe how it is shown in Sanju but I wasn’t into anything hard - just to give context of how ruined life actually was)
My friends somehow balanced things, but I went all in. By the end of 4th semester, I hadn’t passed a single course. (I never wrote any exam after this, till date). tbvh I never wanted to complete my biotech degree so academics were not my biggest concern.
90% of my days were “zero days”. Debt rising. Health falling. No control. No routine. No direction. And once you’re inside this daldal, getting out feels impossible.
I had a 50,000₹ credit card bill overdue for almost 300 days, The first real effort I made to fix my life was by doing something I genuinely loved. My friend Hussain and I created a gossip + comedy magazine about college life. We wrote for months, I learned design from scratch, and we printed hard copies.
It blew up across campus within hours, but we pushed some jokes too far and it got banned the next day. Months of work gone, but I legit received 100+ messages from people, friends and strangers alike — appreciating the effort and creativity. Before I could build on that momentum, I relapsed. And this time, it was even worse.
Soon I had more debt than my entire 4-year IIT fee. I couldn’t ignore it anymore — it was stressing me out beyond anything and became the worst period of my entire life, it was unbearable.
After months of trying and failing to fix myself, one day I broke. I called papa and broke down in tears. That day legit changed everything. I should’ve done it wayyyy earlier. I didn’t because I was scared what my parents will think of me but I was completely wrong. I went home. My father listened to every word. I told him — I felt helpless—like my life was a car and I was sitting in the backseat while someone else held the steering wheel. I knew which way to go, but I couldn’t control it. And ofc no one else could.
then came the biggest transformation journey of my life. I made brutal decisions, rebuilt myself from scratch.
It’s 3:30 AM right now, and after the kind of growth I’ve seen this year, I wish I could go back and whisper to that lost kid:
“You won’t just climb out of this quicksand, you’ll run on it.”
From drowning in debt to earning 5× my family’s income, the pride in my parents’ eyes makes every struggle worth it
This post is only the fall.
The rise is just me finding my way back, believe there’s something in that journey for anyone who’s struggling right now.
Part 2
When I reached home that night, I was completely broken. I could barely sit still for five minutes. My legs kept shaking, I was biting my nails and lips nonstop — classic anxiety that I had lived with since childhood. Papa listened to me for hours, and the next day I was at a psychologist’s office. After a few tests, he told me I had ADHD. And honestly, that one word changed everything for me. It felt like someone finally switched on the lights in a dark room.
My therapist taught me a simple 15-minute muscle relaxation exercise, and I did it every morning and night with full focus. In the beginning, my mind was running everywhere, but after 10–15 days something shifted — the restlessness dropped, the anxiety calmed down, and I could finally sit in one place without feeling trapped.
I started reading more about ADHD, found Andrew Huberman, and followed every small thing he talked about. Slowly, my impulses quietened, and my ability to focus increased massively, I could stay locked in for long stretches without effort. became mindful most of the time. Because I was paying so much attention to my thoughts, my thinking became structured on its own. I could let useless, obsessive thoughts pass without getting stuck in them. Sometimes I would think about a problem before going to take a bath and solve it step by step in my head without even writing anything. It genuinely felt like the context window of my brain had expanded.
In fact my psychologist were so impressed by seeing changes in me that he started some new habits in own life as well. And honestly, this was like rehab for my brain.
For the first time in my life, habits didn’t feel impossible. My prefrontal cortex literally became stronger — the part of the brain that helps you focus and plan. Everything I planned was practical, and I had the willpower to execute it. That mindset shift — from chaotic and impulsive to calm and deliberate — became the foundation of my entire comeback.
After the initial changes, I picked up Atomic Habits. I started reading a few pages every day and immediately applied whatever I learned. I used to call out affirmations like “I am calm now” and “I don’t postpone things,” and slowly my daily actions became more intentional. Even tiny things—capping the pen, making my bed, keeping my table clean—started happening automatically.
The crux is this: willpower is limited.
Building habits requires willpower and deliberate effort, and ADHD makes starting habits extremely hard because the brain struggles with dopamine regulation. But once a habit forms, it needs almost no effort — habits run on autopilot.
That single realization changed everything for me. Habit stacking, tiny routines, and automated behaviors became the backbone of my discipline, and for the first time in my life, consistency didn’t feel impossible.
also this was the first book that I read 100% which in itself is an achievement for a person like me.
After days of thinking, I made a brutal decision: I wouldn’t enroll in any courses again (I didn’t see any value, honestly). I would drop out. It was the start of 7th semester, and I had only a few months to find a way to earn before the semester ended. Some of my closest friends supported me financially during this time, and I’ll be forever grateful to them.
In mid-June, I made a plan: Before my birthday on 17 September, I would get an internship.
I started with CS50 — because honestly, what better introduction to programming exists? I shifted to a new wing (I even thought of changing hostel but Shivalik had my heart so didn’t do it ) so I wouldn’t run into people. I put my phone on flight mode and kept it there for 90% of the day. No Instagram. No social media. No noise. It was pure signal.
I completed CS50 — a full semester-long course — in around 15–20 days, finishing every assignment properly. From the very first lecture, I forgot about everything else. The same way meditation taught me to focus after struggling initially, programming pulled me into flow. It kept getting easier to lock in especially with assignments. After CS50, the final project required building a web app, which inspired me to chose web development, also I wanted a skill that could make me employable quickly.
Then I found Full Stack Open from the University of Helsinki, another top-tier course. I finished all planned chapters, took detailed notes, and completed every single assignment (even the bonus ones) in about 4–5 weeks. Nothing was rushed, nothing was skipped. It was just output.
Outside of basic daily tasks, I did only three things:
Full Stack Open
Swimming
Reading (1–2 hours a day)
I picked up Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins, and that book turned me into a monster at work. I would wake up even before alarms (keep in mind we are talking about 3ish in the morning ). I didn’t want to waste a single minute. My routine became almost mechanical
Wake up at 3:30 AM → 3-hour deep work session → breakfast + cold shower → another 3–4 hours of work → lunch → a 20-minute NSDR → a Casey Neistat vlog + coffee → another 3-hour session → swimming → reading → dinner → sleep → repeat.
No breaks. No notifications. No distractions. Just deliberate effort.
This is how I used to block time everyday
I did this for almost a month without missing a single day or a single session.
as the saying goes - We overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a month. And that month changed my life.
By September, I had completed all the chapters I planned. I built projects using everything I learned, and my CV had no fluff, every line was something I could defend confidently.
Then I saw an opening on IIT notices for an SDE intern role at Lyskraft, I applied. The interview went buttery smooth. I knew every single thing I mentioned in my resume.
13 September 2024 — four days before my 22nd birthday, I got my first internship.
This was a big day for me. Something that felt impossible just a few months ago — I actually did it.
After Lyskraft, I joined Flibbr AI — an IIT KGP–founded startup in Bangalore. I even got kicked out of the hostel when I took that offer, so in Jan 2025 I packed my bags and moved to Bangalore. Life finally felt stable.
Then came another turning point: Faff.
I joined as a lead engineer — basically a founding engineer after the founder. I worked like crazy there. My engineering skills took off. I became a proper problem-solver. I had full freedom to build, break, fix, improve. I would find issues in internal tools, set my own targets, build my own projects. The founders were chill in the right ways, and that environment shaped me more than they know.
Leaving Faff was a tough call, but I had made one principle very clear for myself: Clarity over ambiguity. If you can’t decide, the answer is no.
Then came Mercor.
Currently I work at Mercor, the fastest-growing company in the world right now. The team is insane — brilliant engineers, people from Harvard, Stanford, top universities… and I am grateful to be able to build alongside them.
I believe one thing with my whole heart:
“Success ke piche mat bhago. Excellence ka picha karo. Success jhak marke tumhare piche aayegi.”
If someone like me from Semda can turn life around like this, anyone can
Thank you so much for reading.