It is 2001. I arrive at my JEE Mains centre in a Home Minister's car. "Lal batti" flashing. An armed guard riding along, if I remember right. My classmate Kuber's father was the home minister of Madhya Pradesh. I have stayed the night at their Bhopal bungalow, and his mother cooked dinner for me herself. That is the kind of school Daly College is. My friends' fathers run states. I am the kid whose aunt paid the school fees. The car waits outside through the whole exam. But the paper does not care who drops you off. Inside the hall, I already know it has gone badly. I can attempt only a few questions. I had bet two years on that exam - quit hockey, quit the quizzes and debates, studied while all my friends played. I placed the bet myself, and I lost it. The backup plan was a year in Kota. My father did not have the money for Kota. So: RV College, Bangalore. Cauvery Block, 1st Floor. Nothing about my situation said "researcher." No brand name, no coaching, no one watching. I pulled IEEE Transactions off the library shelf anyway, because the desire was mine and I stopped waiting for someone to authorize it. A year in, I gave the JEE one more shot from my hostel room. Second attempt: 3363. Petrochemical at IIT-BHU. An IIT seat, at last - and I turned it down. I already had one paid-for year of computer science, and just three years left before I could start earning. Starting over meant four more years of fees, in a branch I did not want. Fourteen years later, IIT Bombay calls. Not with a rank. With an offer to teach. In 2016 I walk into CS763, Computer Vision, as the professor. Every student in that room cleared the exam I could not. It never once comes up. The exam's authority, it turns out, expires. I teach there four years. Graduate 2 PhD students. One of them, Rishabh, is a professor today at Max Planck - the institute where I did my own PhD. The credit is his. At most I held a door open. But the symmetry stuns me: my student teaches where I trained, and I taught where I could not study. So if an exam has just told you who you are - if you are stuck, and you know you are capable - hear me: it is not the end. The exam decided where I started. It had no authority over where I ended. Neither does yours. Do not wait for permission. Work like the desire is already authorized, because it is. It will work out - not on their schedule. On yours. So tell me in the comments: the exam that said no to you, and the person you became anyway. Someone sitting tonight where I sat needs to read your comment more than my post. 𝗚𝗼 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀.