UPSC Competition
From being hunters to growers, history stands witness to the human tendency of making himself as safe as possible, keeping away from challenges and taking up the path less difficult. Those who could go the extra mile or take the path less taken after having overcome the fear of failure are the ones remembered in history as legends.
According to spiritual leaders as well as some psychologists, there are 2 main levels of consciousness
Higher Consciousness
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Lower Consciousness
Lower consciousness pertains to mind and body which elaborately includes the needs and comfort of the body, emotions and moods relating to the mind. It is usually very difficult to overcome these needs or control them unless one develops a taste for higher consciousness which pertains to soul. Once we are successful in developing this higher taste, the trivial issues in life and the small needs will cease to exist. You will question yourself before settling for a small goals in life because mediocrity will no longer be your choice. When this happens you will start understanding and believing the saying of our former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam that SMALL AIM IS A CRIME.
Ask anyone and he will tell you that to be successful in life the most important requirement is self-belief. We have extreme examples of people who could achieve the impossible only because they never stopped believing in themselves even when the world did not trust them. The second most important requirement is the ability to take risks. And the third most important requirement is the ability to tackle failure and bounce back with renewed vigour.
Coming back to the civil services examination, popularly known as the IAS exam or simply UPSC. The structure of the exam itself has been designed to filter out people who take it merely as a shortcut to glory and power. Besides persistent hard work and patience, one’s ability to delay gratification, one’s ability to hold on to the dream despite short term distractions and above all, the ability to keep oneself as motivated as one was when one started the preparation, is all put to test at once.
Two years back I was unaware of the above facts. I was in the final year of my college and like every final year student I was scared about not getting selected in campus placements. The placement training began, honing of basic aptitude and brushing up the soft skills began. The companies came and I got selected in TCS along with 300 other college mates. I felt positive but I was not content. Maybe because the selection process was not challenging enough, maybe because it was not something which could be classified as an achievement. I started searching for roles I'd be playing in this company. I was disappointed. Was I born to work for a company, earn for myself and get old and die? Such questions started popping in my head. I was not at peace.
One weekend my maternal uncle was visiting our house, he had come especially to congratulate me for getting placed. He could easily spot that I was not happy and he asked me about it. The conversation I had with him changed my entire thought process and the way I looked at things. He told me if I wanted to work for people and play different roles at different parts of my career I could take up a public service job, or join some NGO or become a social activist but if I wanted to impact large number of people within a short span of time and get things done bypassing the hurdles of the system I should be at the top position in the system itself. He clearly meant, which I later realized, that I should join the civil services. He further went on to say that despite the desire to bring about a change and work for the society most people can’t help but be entangled in life’s basic needs such as a house for living, chauffeur driven car, health and security of the family and decent salary. Being in the civil services the govt. makes sure that these basic needs are taken well care of so that the officers are free to focus on the real issues facing the society at large.
These were reasons enough for me to make a decision. I always knew that being an IAS officer is something of very high order but after the conversation I came to know WHY? I started reading about the powers and functions of a civil servant only to get my motivation level soar. And it was not long before I decided not to join the TCS and go for this exam all in.
Brain is a wonderful organ and one needs to develop a higher level of consciousness to maneuver through highs and lows of mood swings which one would be forced to deal with every now and then. Seeing my peers who had joined TCS and other companies going abroad for onsite trips, buying cars and moving ahead in their career paths, while I would be stuck with the same set of books day in and day out used to entice me to question my decision more often than not. But instead of giving in to these temptations I held on to a strong nerve, dreaming about the Mussoorie breeze.
With each passing day I would make sure I am moving close to my dream both in terms of preparation and determination. There came a time when i started to love my preparation so much that I was afraid if I would be equally happy on seeing my name in the final list, if not more. I had created a space where I had started seeing myself as an IAS officer much much before I even filled in the application form for prelims. Call me insane, if you may, but that's a reality.
Every person I met during the course of the preparation I made sure I had something to take from them at the end of the day. I am more indebted to those who came to me with a negative attitude towards my preparation and the exam as a whole than to those who came with positivity.
For instance, one of my distant relatives came to me and said, ‘’why are you running after something so uncertain, you should have taken up your job and gone abroad and enjoyed youth as the time to have fun.” Then he went on to cite statistics saying that out of 9 lakhs people who apply for the exam only 14000 qualify for prelims so the probability of making it to mains is less than 0.015 let alone making it to the list. One wrong question could make you lose 2.66 marks including the penalty and make 2500 people cross you. I listened to each and every word that he said without interrupting him or justifying my ambition to him.
But as soon as he left I analysed each and every word that he had said in a positive way. I made my own statistics which looks like this; some 9 lakh people from across the country fill the 100 rupees form, but only half that number actually sit for the prelims. Out of the 4.5 lakh people, some of whom think it to be a rupees 100 lottery ticket to glory, only 15k (approx) get selected to write the Mains because a majority of them take this exam as a secondary thing, failing to give it the due importance it deserves. I saw that 2.66 marks and 2500 people as an advantage because getting 1 correct answer could soar you past 2500 people in a go. A majority of people who clear the prelims have not written one single answer on paper before the prelims results, I personally know quite a few. Taking the mains exam without having practiced answer writing is like diving in a swimming pool without knowing how to swim, one is bound to drown both in the pool as well as the Mains.
Some of my peers used to keep on pointing at the fluctuating vacancies in the examination. It used to worry me little but then I used to say to myself that why should I care about it when I only need 1 seat for myself. And I have to get into the service even if the vacancy plummets down to 1 so anything more than 1 shouldn't worry me at all. I not only used to say this to myself but I believed in this with all my heart and soul, this makes me remember a quote by Rumi that when you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Despite the negativity and distractions, I had an unimaginable amount of motivation and positive spirit to maintain the momentum because I enjoyed the journey more than anything else in the world at that point of time.
I used to read about senior IAS and IPS officers in service and keep myself mesmerized by the variety of roles most of them played in their tenure of service. From being district magistrates playing a role in policy implementation as district level to being cabinet secretaries and playing role in policy formulation at the central level, the diversity of the roles throughout the career of an officer used to raise my craving for the service even more. While on the other hand the complaints of monotony and lack of authority in most other jobs used to act like a reaffirmation in my decision.
I used to dream and predict the questions UPSC would ask. I used to imagine my name in the list and predict my rank and the post result interviews. I used to frame questions in my head. I am sure it will be difficult for you to believe but in most of the cases my imagination came across as a soothsayer. When I saw my optional paper it seemed like a Deja Vu to me. I was so entwined with the thought process of the examiners that after writing the mains exam I was sure of getting the interview call, well in advance.
Some people might say that all this is too unrealistic and too impractical, I would go ahead and thank them for understanding the point I was trying to make all the while. For others who might say that all this is an illusion or unachievable, I would humbly choose to disagree with them in all my sanity.
Last but not the least I can say without doubt that no one after having studied seriously for the examination can ever say that this exam in itself is difficult to crack otherwise people would not be trying their hand at this exam after failing it the 1st time itself like me. The fact that 1000 people are able to crack the exam every year is reason enough for you to believe that you can too, irrespective of your background. Even if you fail, I can assure you that this would be the best journey you could have ever chosen to take without regretting later on and I can vouch for it.
It takes much more than merely studying to challenge the UPSC. As each single day into the preparation is a test, judging different aspects of your life apart from ‘only’ academics. There's a certain delusional quality that all successful people have to have. You have to believe that something different than what has happened for the last 50 million years of history, can happen. And the only person who can make it happen is YOU.
All the best!