“Becoming the topper was my dream from the very beginning,” said Fahmin Sayyed, the top-scorer at Andheri’s Bombay Cambridge International School, who scored 95.6% in the Class 10 SSC Board exam. She said that she started her academic year by setting a goal for herself each day, and completing it, such as studying for at least two to three hours daily. “I did this keeping my long-term goal in mind,” she said, adding that good teachers who helped her solve all her doubts were her biggest bedrocks.
At times when she felt that her hard work didn’t pay off, she pulled herself up and abided by her key mantra - Consistency. Being her school’s Vice Captain was a tough call for her to make. But she was determined to balance both - performing well academically and upholding her responsibilities as a Vice Captain. What piqued her most was the subject of Science - which also aligns with her future goal of becoming a scientist at NASA. “Even if I had low stamina on a given day, I still studied science with enthusiasm because my heart was in it,” she said.
Language subjects were not her forte, and she struggled to find interest in them. “I had to devote a lot of time to languages after my prelims because I was pretty bad at it,” she said. Only once she put her mind to studying them well was she able to score above 90 in all her language subjects. She called her parents her biggest support systems, adding that they never jeered at her for scoring low in any subject. “They still praised me, even if I hadn’t done my best, and told me that they knew I would give my 100 percent in boards,'' she said, adding that she was nervous before the announcement of results. She had asked her parents “What if I score below 80 per cent?”. Her parents responded, “That could happen, but what if it happens? Nothing wrong with it”.
“I never had to ask her to study, she did it because she saw it as her duty,” said Fahmin’s mother, Tasneem Nishad Sayyed, adding that Fahmin has always wanted to be self-reliant and stand on her own feet.
Fahmin lives in a 1 BHK apartment. “Sometimes when I used to study, there were lots of guests visiting our apartment and that made it difficult for me to focus,” she said. One needs a quiet environment at home to really focus, she said, adding that because of the inconvenience caused by guests at her home, she started studying at night from 12am to 5am. “After returning home from school, I slept from 1 am till 5 pm, she explained, adding that she found it peaceful to study during the night.
On being asked what she did for leisure, Fahmin said that she sketched a lot, recorded herself while she sang, played throwball and watched cricket. “I also watched a TV show called Stranger Things and ate a lot of pani puri with my friends,” she said.
Fahmin was enrolled in National Children’s Science Congress (NCSC), a nationwide science communication programme started in 1993. “That experience helped me understand concepts like critical thinking, being confident, and articulating answers well”, she said. She represented her school at the national level through the program, where she made a project on the theme of producing ink from carbon.
