A keyboard player and a voracious reader who is currently
learning French — this is how family, friends and teachers describe 17-year-old
Raksha Gopal, who scored 99.6% in her CBSE 12th boards to emerge as all-India
topper on Sunday morning.
Raksha’s elder sister Prerna Gopal says that although Raksha
is known today for scoring 99.6% in her boards, she is much more than just
that. “She has completed five levels in electric keyboard from a Delhi based
institute affiliated with Trinity College of Music, London and she has also
completed C1 grade in French from Alliance Francaise. My sister is
multi-talented,” says 20-year-old Prerna. A student of humanities at Amity
International School Noida, Raksha scored 100 in three subjects — English core,
political science and economics — and also managed to score 99 in two subjects
— psychology and history. Her aggregate goes to a phenomenal 99.6%. It makes
everyone else imagine her as someone who would have stayed buried under books
for years. However, her father, Gopal Srinivasan (52), who works as chief
finance officer in Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, says he never put any
pressure on Raksha to perform.
Srinivasan says she started winning awards at a young age
and the entire school knew that she was ‘topper material’. “But we never put
any kind of pressure on her. In fact, we forced her to take necessary breaks in
between study hours. We clearly told her that we don’t have any over the top
expectations and she should just give her best without any pressure,”
Srinivasan adds.
