My father played a visionary’s role in giving shape to my educational foundation by specially arranging tuition from a very committed and dedicated teacher with strong principles of life, Guruji Kanhaiya Lal ji Tripathi. He used to have his own private school and as such he neither had spare time nor he was open to giving tuition at the student’s house. However, without compromising with the principles of Guruji, my father made a unique arrangement with him and made him agreeable to give me tuition at his own house in the early hours of morning that is before the sunrise in the light of a lantern and for this purpose I was required to go to Guruji’s house after finishing my dinner and sleep at Guruji’s place with his children. This routine continued for almost five years until I completed class VIII.

As a God sent blessing, just based on incidental good performance in the very first half yearly examination in the college, I was picked up from the back benches of the class by Professor R B L Agrawal Saheb (the Accountancy Professor) who later made it a mission to make me University Topper/Gold Medalist though I never ever dreamed of it or ever considered myself fit enough for it. However, continuous motivation, guidance, support and love & affection of Prof. R B L Agrawal Saheb, made this village boy indeed the Topper of the University of Rajasthan in BCom Examination and the Gold Medalist of 1968. Whole credit for this achievement goes to Respected Prof R B L Agrawal Saheb alone.

Then the most vital and completely unplanned turn came when immediately after the B.Com Examination and even before publication of results, at the behest and initiative of Respected Masiji (mother’s younger sister) I got the opportunity of coming to Calcutta for doing a salaried job. My elder brother Shri O P Pansari with the blessings of Respected Masaji and Masiji had already come to Kolkata two years earlier and had been managing their Medical Store at Liluah. While waiting for the B.Com results and to join a job thereafter, Om Bhai Saheb was kind enough to guide and make me acclimatize to the City of Calcutta and the culture hereof. However with the publication of BCom results and having become the University Topper, the expectations and the mindset of Masaji-Masiji and Om Bhai Saheb completely changed and they insisted that I must do Chartered Accountancy and not the job of an Accounts Clerk. All three of them had to struggle a lot to make my parents agreeable for it but with the blessings of God, ultimately the road for doing CA got cleared and log jam removed. This is how the journey of becoming R P Pansari from Raju started and the contribution of these three persons in this walk of journey is unmeasurable.

Having been a Gold Medalist graduate, getting Articleship in one of the reputed firms of Chartered Accountants did not pose any difficulty but doing CA Course in English Medium in the background of all earlier education in Hindi Medium did raise a big challenge. Taking coaching or tuition was beyond means and therefore with prayers to Maa Goddess Saraswati I embarked upon this difficult journey by walking extra miles and devoting greater attention on self-studies. Having been living in a small rented accommodation with brothers and their families very near to Railway Station, the Railway Platforms filled up the gap of shortage of space for the purposes of doing self-studies. With blessings of Maa Goddess Saraswati, I passed out both the exams of Chartered Accountancy not only in the first go and within the duration of articleship period but even secured impressive ranks, both in the Eastern Region as well as on all India basis.