Seventeen-year-old Aryan Gupta, who secured joint AIR 1 in NEET-UG 2026, said he "cried a lot" after the original exam was cancelled over a paper leak controversy in May. "Initially it felt tough to study for the re-test all over again but then I realised I wasn’t alone," he added. Aryan, who hails from Ludhiana, scored 715/720 in the re-test.