In a world full of stories like 3 Idiot’s Farhaan and Taare Zameen Par’s Ishaan, it’s hard to come across instances when parents, instead of pushing their children to the lifetime of damage that the unspoken pressure of getting into prestigious educational institutes like IITs and IIMs has on their psyche, saves them from making a usual choice. And today is our lucky day because this is the day we get to know the story of Nishant Jain’s father.

Nishant Jain, an artist, writer, and webcomic creator, shared an emotional Twitter post for his father, Lalit Jain, on Father’s Day.

“My father saved me the day I was about to join FIITJEE. We went to pay the fees together. The receptionist explained a daily schedule of 5-6 hours of homework, with no room for sports or other interests. “Everyone is doing it, here’s the form for the fee…” wrote Nishant.

“The story goes back to 2004, I was an intelligent studious kid who just like everyone else, followed the aspiration to secure admission into an engineering college of good repute,” Nishant told Better India.

To me, it seemed like a natural move to study for the JEE. After I cleared my JEE entrance examination, my father and I went to the institute to pay the fees and find out more. It was only when we reached the institute did my father start asking them about the course and what it would entail, said Nishant.

They went in there without detailed knowledge of what was amiss. On enquiring about the course, the counsellor told them that prepping for JEE would mean that I will have to give up two years of my life, Nishant told Better India.

No “other distractions or time for anything else”, the counsellor said.

“This is the time when my father decided against enrolling in the institute and encouraged me to do the same. That instance could very well be described as the turning point in my life,” he said.

Nishant, however, went on to prepare for IIT JEE, without sacrificing two precious years of his life and interests and got admission in an elite engineering college.

“While studying for the JEE entrance, I also spent a lot of time reading, maintaining a blog, playing sports and enjoying free time, ” Nishant said and added that those two years played a huge role in what he has become today.

The blog that he started in Class 11 transformed into a webcomic, which today is a website. He is also a sketch artist, comedian, and content creator.