“Frankly I think it was my involvement with sports that helped me to study — study with understanding and discipline,” says P. Premkumar Std. XII, Chennai H.S.S., Maduvankarai (near Guindy).
His hard work and determination got him 191 - Tamil, 185 - English, 198 – Economics and centum for Commerce, Accounts and Business maths. As his passion is for commerce-related subjects, he plans to do B.Com and later do an MBA. He is also planning to do his civil services examination.
“Whatever I am taught in school, I revise everyday and redo all my lessons on my own at home. If I know what is going to be taught in school the next day, I read that lesson also. I finish studying around midnight. I get up at five in the morning and revise what I studied the previous night. This method suited me,” he said. Life is tough as his father had died and his mother had to sell fish in the Triplicane market to earn a living. Seeing his mother leaving early morning for work and struggling to make ends meet, made Premkumar determined to study well so that he could be in a position to look after his mother and family later on in life. “But despite her hardship, she never let me help her, even during the weekends. She kept telling me to only concentrate on my studies.
My teachers and the headmaster motivated me and instilled in me a confidence that I could do it.” Premkumar plans to hone his athletic skills too. He was part of the school volleyball team and has participated in divisional meets in athletics, long jump and shotput. “Actually it was because of sports that I started to study well. I realised that if I could do excel in sports, then I could study well too. Sports made me fit and alert and relaxed my mind. Sports inculcated many good habits in me,” said this year's Chennai school topper, P. Premkumar.
