For Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, one of the most enduring lessons on responsibility came from how his father reacted after scoring 99 marks in a maths examination.
Speaking in an interview with NDTV, Goyal recalled an episode from the student days of his father, Ved Prakash Goyal, when an examination paper was set outside the syllabus and students were given the option to retain their marks or appear for the exam again.
His father scored 99 out of 100 in the maths paper. “He was not satisfied,” Goyal said. Despite being given the choice to keep the marks, his father decided to reappear for the examination, accepting the risk that the result could be lower.
Retaking the paper meant giving up a near-perfect score with no certainty of improvement. His father returned with a full 100.
A Lesson Beyond Marks
For Goyal, the episode became a defining lesson at home. It was not about academic achievement, he said, but about refusing to accept an outcome that felt incomplete. “That stayed with us,” Goyal said. “If you believe something can be done better, you take responsibility for it, even if there is a risk.”
The incident shaped how work was approached within the family, reinforcing the importance of accountability, thoroughness and ownership of outcomes.
Precision As A Habit
Goyal said that insistence on getting things right extended into everyday life. Any document he shared with his father, he recalled, would come back marked with numerous corrections.
“If I ever showed him a paper, it would come back with a lot of changes,” Goyal said. “He was very particular about details.” At the time, he said, the approach often felt exacting. Over the years, it became formative.
Carrying The Lesson Into Public Service
Goyal said the lesson from that one missing mark continues to shape how he approaches public responsibility, particularly when dealing with complex policy matters and negotiations.
The principle, he said, was not about chasing perfection, but about taking full responsibility for outcomes rather than settling for what is merely acceptable.
For him, the memory remains a reminder that public service demands discipline, care and the willingness to go one step further when responsibility requires it.
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