Tanish Tirpathi

Who I Am and Why I Am Me?

No matter how low a phase gets, I always make a comeback.

The Beginning

2023 was the year everything started changing. I passed 10th and decided to prepare for JEE. On paper, I was a topper: I studied less and still scored well.

But inside, I was shy, nerdy, and under-confident. I could not speak English properly, and that made me feel small.

I stopped going to school regularly for a while. Then I shifted to School of Eminence. That decision helped me more than I expected. I made a few good friends, but two people changed me the most:

RAMU
sharadha

They were both extroverted and full of energy. I was the opposite, so being around them pushed me to grow.

Mid-11th: The Laptop Chapter

In 11th, I got my first laptop. It was old, but to me it felt like a supercomputer.

i3 2nd Gen
2 GB RAM
128 GB SSD

I loved that machine. One day, ramu told me to watch Iron Man. I started with Iron Man 3, got obsessed with Tony Stark, and then watched the full series.

That obsession turned into action. At first, I thought I only liked the style: the confidence, the humor, the way Tony entered a room like he owned the moment. But slowly, I realized what truly hit me was his mindset.

He was never perfect, but he was always building. Broken? Build. Scared? Build. Alone? Still build.

That became my private rule. In September 2023, I learned Python in three days and tried to build my own basic JARVIS for my laptop. The code was messy, the features were basic, and half of it failed at first. But every time something broke, I felt excited instead of ashamed. For the first time, I did not feel like a weak student trying to survive. I felt like a builder.

That was my first taste of Tony Stark energy:

staying calm under pressure
turning pain into work
using skill as confidence
speaking less, improving more

It was not cosplay. It was not attitude. It was discipline disguised as obsession.

The Trip and the Fall

In December, we went on a 7-day trip. Around that time, I developed a crush on shraddha, and we were kind of close.

But the trip was not easy. Some classmates bullied me for things like:

my looks
being physically weak
low confidence
having no strong skillset yet

After I got that crush, I became too attached. I kept revolving my world around shraddha. ramu warned me many times, then slowly distanced himself.

By January 2024, even my studies were getting weaker. For someone who was always a topper, that hit hard.

January 2024: The Turning Point

I had a fight with sharadha. She was an excellent speaker, and there was a district-level competition at another college where shraddha was participating. I went there hoping to fix things.

I prepared the whole night before the event. But when the moment came, I could barely stand on stage. I could not speak in front of the whole college. It was embarrassing.

shraddha won first prize that day. After the event, she told me:

"Tanish tu mere liye kyu dene aaya speech yaha, even tujhe aati bhi nai hai."

She was not wrong. Still, that line hurt. But that hurt became fuel.

That day I understood something important: confidence is not borrowed, it is built.

Still, life kept moving.

About 15 to 20 days before exams, shraddha stopped talking to me. We fought, but she did not tell me the reason. I kept wondering what had happened. I tried hard to make things normal, but nothing worked. I became like Devdas, sitting near the classroom window and staring outside for long hours.

Then exams came.

I scored only 73% in 11th.

It was March, and for someone who used to score 95+, it felt like a major fall. Sometimes she talked to me, sometimes she ignored me, and that hurt every day. Every small notification gave me hope. Every silence gave me anxiety.

After a month, the new 12th session started. Some nights we texted for hours. Some weeks she ghosted me completely. I was stuck in a cycle: hope, confusion, pain, repeat.

Actual Transformation

During summer vacation, I made one decision after a hard realization:

"That's not the man I want to become."

I blocked almost every classmate. I gave my Instagram password to a friend and asked him to change it so I could not log in. I even cut my hair.

For the first 5 to 7 days, I stayed strong. Then on 5 June 2024, on her birthday, I broke. I somehow opened Instagram and kept texting her continuously for around four hours at night.

In the morning, I saw her reply.

Was it bad? It was worse.

Some words broke me from inside. That was the moment I decided I would never repeat this again, no matter what. I remember sitting quietly after reading that message. No drama. No tears in public. Just silence. But inside, it felt like something had cracked for good.

Till then, I had focused only on academics. After that, I made a full self-improvement plan:

I learned manipulation awareness.
I learned communication.
I worked on my appearance.
I worked on every single aspect of my life.

Within a month, things started changing. My routine became strict. Wake up, train mind, train communication, study, practice speaking, repeat. When I felt low, I did not text. I opened notes. I practiced. I built.

That was the real shift. I stopped chasing people and started chasing growth.

People Started Noticing

After a month, I returned to school, and everyone noticed the change. Some classmates tried to bully me again, but this time I knew how to handle it. Friends who had left me during my low phase started coming back. Even Ramu came back. Even shraddha apologized.

Teachers started noticing me too. For the first time, I felt positive, stable, and in control.

I also started giving speeches. For the previous 2 to 4 months, I had practiced alone in my room, and that practice finally showed. I used to stand in front of a wall and speak as if a full audience was watching me. At first, my voice shook. Then my pauses got better. Then my tone got sharper. Then confidence started sounding natural.

I built a unique identity: "Radhe Radhe wale bhaiya," because I often started my speeches with "Radhe Radhe." I began doing the things I had always feared.

ramu and I also played chess a lot. At first, he beat me every time. Then one day, the pattern changed. He was still good, but I had become obsessed with improvement.

Everything was going well, and then another twist came. The same trip returned.

In the first list, my name was there but hers was not, so I told my class in-charge I would not go. In the second list, her name appeared, so my teacher added my name again. I thought everything was fine.

Then the third list came. Her name stayed. Mine was removed.

Everyone expected she would deny it, including me, but she did not. I came home upset, but I kept telling myself: everything happens for a reason.

During that trip, I heard something that created distance between us. January 2025 arrived. She came back, and I thought we could fix things. But she did not take the first step, and neither did I because of my ego. Two people can care and still drift apart. That is one of the hardest truths I learned.

Then 14 February came, not for Valentine's Day, but for something else. It was the day of the same speech competition from last year.

ramu forced me to give a speech. I refused at first, but he insisted, so I tried. Everyone came with scripts, except me.

ramu and shradha were the strongest players in that space. Both were known for delivering powerful speeches.

One by one, everyone spoke. At the end, I spoke too, and I delivered more than anyone expected. I did not have a script. I only had scars, practice, and presence. That day, my voice carried all the months I had suffered in silence.

When I came back, students were praising me. Then the results came:

I was first.
shradha was second.
ramu did not get a position.

I felt two emotions at once. I was happy because I won and proved myself. I was sad because ramu was my friend and mentor-like figure.

After that day, he stopped talking to me. He ignored me and blocked me on social media. I tried for a year, but nothing worked. Eventually, I stopped trying.

And that is who I am: someone built by heartbreak, discipline, and comeback after comeback.

I am not the old version of me anymore. I still feel pain. I still overthink sometimes. But now I know what to do with it.

I convert pain into work. I convert rejection into preparation. I convert silence into focus.

That is my Tony Stark energy. Not the suit. Not the style. The system.

And I am still building.