My Beginning and My Becoming
Daly College wasn't just my school.
It was the soil I grew out of.
When people ask me where my story began, I don't point to a city, or a ground, or a single moment. I point to Daly College, Indore, the place where I studied, lived, played, dreamed and became the person I am today.
Those gates didn't just open into classrooms.
They opened into my childhood, my identity, my foundation.
Every value I hold today discipline, respect, sportsmanship, leadership they weren't taught through lectures.
They were built in me through years of living the Daly experience.
A Life Filled With Sports
Before cricket became my greatest love, I was simply a boy who loved every sport.
Running, football, house competitions, athletics I wanted to play everything. There are pictures of me sprinting, mid-stride, lost in the rhythm of speed. Because at Daly, sports wasn't a hobby; it was a heartbeat.
We didn't need motivation.
The environment itself pushed us, the fields, the coaches, the daily routine, the competitive spirit between houses.
Daly College made me an athlete first, and a cricketer later.
The Cricket Seed, Planted in the Daly Fields
If sports made me disciplined, cricket taught me who I was.
I still remember the first time I wore the Daly College cricket jersey. It was more than a uniform. It felt like a promise, to myself, to my school, to the game.
Cricket grew inside me at Daly College.
And Daly, in return, gave me every opportunity to grow with it.
I became the Junior School Cricket Captain, standing proudly in that old photograph from Mayo College, Ajmer. That was the first time I realised responsibility wasn't something you ask for it's something you earn.
Growing Through Competition
From junior school to senior school, Daly College kept me on the move Ajmer, Hyderabad, IPSC tournaments, inter-school competitions across India.
I played for Daly everywhere the game took me.
And with every match came growth.
With every challenge came hunger.
With every trophy came gratitude.
The awards Best All-Rounder, Best Fielder, trophies lined across years were never about fame. They were proof that Daly trusted me, invested in me, and pushed me to be better than I was yesterday.
The Australia Tours, A School That Gave Me Wings
It was because of Daly College that I travelled to Australia twice.
Once in the 9th grade as the youngest in the team.
And then again in the 12th, when the story took a turn no one expected.
Those journeys didn't just sharpen my cricket. They widened my world.
They taught me how big the game was and how much bigger heart could be.
The second tour where we built an unofficial team from nothing, where we played with nothing but belief, where we won against all odds, that entire chapter exists only because Daly College gave us the platform to dream.
The school didn't just give me grounds.
It gave me horizons.
Captaincy - The Honour of My School Life
After we returned from Australia with the trophy no one expected us to lift, Daly College honoured me by naming me the official Captain of the School Cricket Team.
That moment remains one of the proudest of my life.
Not because I became captain.
But because my school believed I was worthy of leading its team.
Daly didn't just teach me to play cricket.
It taught me to stand for something bigger than myself.
The Daly Spirit - Still Within Me
Today, when I look back at the man I've become whether in cricket, entrepreneurship, or life I see Daly College in all of it.
The discipline in my routine. The courage to take risks. The resilience to stand again. The leadership that comes without noise. The humility to keep learning. All of it began in school. All of it began in Daly College.
Even today, when I step onto the grounds of my school or watch the juniors play, a familiar spark lights within me. It's the reminder that every chapter of my life traces back to this one place.
Daly College isn't my past.
It's my foundation.
It's the school that raised me - and continues to live within me.
