Study Table, Kickboxing and Drugs to the Linux Terminal
A Journey of Insecurities and Aha Moments
What makes a person learn a new skill?
For many, it might be ambition, opportunity, or a well-laid plan. For me, it has always been two things: my insecurities, and that rush — that quiet, electric aha — when I manage to do something I genuinely never thought I could.
The Chubby Kid by the Window
Growing up, I was the chubby kid. The sickly one. The kind who would run a fever just from sweating a little, which meant sports were essentially off-limits. While the kids in the neighbourhood played cricket in the evenings, I sat at my study table with a book open in front of me, mostly just dreaming about being out there with them often times thinking fantasizing about winning.
It shaped me more than I realised at the time.
Kota’s rat race and the Humbling
After my 12th board exams, I packed my bags and headed to Kota, Rajasthan — India’s legendary hotbed of medical coaching — to prepare for the NEET examination. NEET is the gateway to medical college in India, the exam you appear for if becoming a doctor is the plan.
In Kota, I discovered something important about myself: I was below average at almost everything.
I came back, appeared for the exam, and failed. Then I prepared again. And failed again. Five consecutive years. Five attempts. Five failures.
I won’t pretend I studied with relentless discipline during those years — I didn’t. That story could fill another blog post entirely. But what those years gave me, quietly and almost accidentally, was a belief: a human being can learn almost any skill, given the time and the reason to do so. The reason for this belief was kickboxing.
15 Kilograms less and 21 Pull-Ups
Somewhere in the middle of those five years, I decided I wanted to lose weight. So I started training in all sorts of striking-based martial arts. And I lost about 15 kilograms.
That opened a door I didn’t expect. I got completely hooked on mixed martial arts — watching fights, breaking them down, understanding the strategy inside the chaos. I was also doing a lot of calisthenics exercises. From not being able to do a single pull-up, I eventually worked up to a max of 21.
But here’s the irony: I could not sit down and finish a chapter of my NEET textbook to save my life. The moment I tried, my hand would find my phone, and I’d be watching fight breakdowns or calisthenics videos within minutes.
The body was willing. The books, not so much.
B. Pharm, DMT, Walter White and an Unexpected Spark
After five failed attempts, I had to make a move. I chose to follow my brother into Bachelor’s of Pharmacy (B. Pharm) — not out of passion, but necessity. I didn’t enjoy it much, at least not at first.
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Then, in our third year, a friend and I stumbled onto a subject called Medicinal Chemistry.
Something clicked. Or maybe our inner Walter White was awakened!
We learned to synthesise Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), then LSD. We explored Pharmacognosy. We studied the production procedures for Cocaine, Morphine and Heroin. The years I had spent grinding NEET concepts had quietly built a strong foundation in the sciences, and suddenly that foundation had somewhere interesting to go. My friend and I were genuinely excited about what we were learning — it felt less like studying and more like uncovering something.
We even managed to publish a paper in Medicinal Chemistry during that time. It remains one of the things I’m genuinely proud of.
And then the 5th semester ended, and so did Medicinal Chemistry.
A Roommate, a Rabbit Hole, and Vibe Coding
Around this time, I had a roommate pursuing a B.Tech in Computer Science from the same university. Through casual conversations, I started picking up the vocabulary of his world — terms I didn’t fully understand but couldn’t stop thinking about.
Then I stumbled onto what Andrej Karpathy would later give the name ‘vibe coding’ — though he hadn’t named it yet when I first started doing it. I built a few applications around drug-drug interactions and drug compatibility. I participated in hackathons. And somewhere in the process, I realised that this was something I wanted to pursue seriously.
That led me to where I am now: pursuing a Master’s in Computer Applications (MCA), learning to build things rather than just use them.
6 WPM to 60 WPM
When I started, I realised my typing speed was embarrassingly slow. So I decided to learn touch typing.
My first day: 6 words per minute.
The day I am writing this: around 60 words per minute.
It’s a small thing in the grand scheme. But it’s exactly the kind of thing that keeps me going — the proof that the gap between “I can’t do this” and “I can do this” is almost always just time and repetition.
What’s Next
Right now, I am learning C, Python, and Rust. Three very different languages, each teaching me something different about how computers work and how a software is built.
I’ll be sharing that journey here — the progress, the confusion, the occasional breakthrough, and the inevitable moments wherin I fail again and again.
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius
If you’ve read this far: hello. I’m glad you’re here.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my first ever blog post. More to come.
