Key to unlock the doors of IIT

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It’s become quite a trend for students from IITs and IIMs to turn authors. They pluck out the most fascinating stories from their lives at the institute, club it with interesting stories of their classmates, add some zing and flavour and voila! a bestseller aspirant is born.
Many of these books centre around the fun on campus, bonds of friendship, the blossoming and cracking of relationships, the promise and uncertainity of the career path ahead.
A group of four first year IITians, however, have tried their hand at something different — My Encounter With IIT-JEE: The Story of Preparation by Arpit Agrawal and his three friends, is about their experiences and lessons learned while preparing for IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Exam).
Arpit was the all-India topper in the JEE last year and is currently pursuing B.Tech, Computer Science at IIT-Delhi. Of the other three, Sanju Ahuja is in her first year of Mechanical Engineering at IIT-Delhi, Ayush Gogia is pursuing Civil Engineering from IIT-Roorkee and Sagar Garg is in his first year of Chemical Engineering at IIT-Guwahati.
Arpit says the book is more than just a self-help, inspirational guide. “It’s the story of getting into IIT and shares the experiences of many aspirants,” says Arpit, who started working on the book right after the JEE results were out. “I thought whatever we are feeling today we might not feel the same once we get into college and thus after talking to my three friends who have co-authored the book, we started on it,” he says and mentions that the first manuscript was ready by October 2012.
However, the team wanted it to be perfect and thus, more than 25 people including teachers, parents and co-aspirants went through it for proof-reading, editing and improvisation.
The final manuscript was ready by December but the real trouble was finding a publisher. “It was really difficult to find someone who could publish the book. After being turned down by many publishers, Arihant Publishers agreed to go ahead with the book,” says Arpit, whose basic idea to involve more people in writing the book was to include more experiences from different backgrounds.
“Now, it’s a wholesome read, replete with experiences of four different people, studying in four different streams of engineering and coming from totally different backgrounds. It is not just our personal accounts, but a book that talks about the gradual process of cracking the IIT-JEE,” he says.
The book is available at a few online stores and is set to hit the stands soon.