Civil Services Aspirants Life Style
At 27, Nayan Mohapatra doesn’t have to explain why he doesn’t hold a job and has never earned a single rupee. ‘‘I’m studying for the IAS,’’ is his stock reply to anyone who wonders what he’s been doing in Delhi for the past three years.
Not that the ‘what-are-you-doing’ question comes Nayan’s way very often, given that he allows nothing — no morsels of leisure, walks to the market, hair cuts — to distract him from realising his goal.
Nayan, who’s surviving in this mad city of 12 million on the strength of his ambition, and a lot of generosity and goodwill from his Rourkela-based parents, has cleared the Preliminary civil services exam twice, but hasn’t made it past the Mains yet. ‘‘I’m not leaving any room for doubt this time,’’ says Nayan, who lives on a paltry Rs 1,500 a month, which comes to him through a money order (postmarked Rourkela) every 30 days.
He doesn’t cook because it’s ‘‘a waste of time,’’ hasn’t been home in three years because there’s no one to pay his train fare. Sixteen-hour days, beginning at an unearthly 4.30 am, have run into monochrome months, even years. His ‘residence’? One corner of a room that measures no more than six feet by eight feet, which he shares with fellow IAS aspirant Sreenivas: 24, Bihar-born, first-timer. A wood plank framed in metal serves as a bed (blanket, sheet and no pillow). Stacked in two neat columns beneath the bed is evidence (a) of his progress, which is the number of study books he has mastered, and (b) of the task ahead, which is the number of books he still has to go through.
No, Nayan’s not a freak case whose HI (human interest, human interest) story you can despatch to your newspaper for a congratulatory note from the editor. If anything, he’s the prototype of a sub-species — the IAS aspirant (person with a ‘mission’), usually from small-town India, who has shifted base to Delhi, chasing the power dream, sitting in on coaching classes — who has an existence on the borderlines of city life.
The IAS aspirant lives like an ascetic, but aspires for a life flush with comfort. So if Nayan hasn’t been to a movie theatre ‘‘since Hum Aapke Hain Kaun,’’ it’s because movies remind him of ‘‘how far I have to go.’’ And while James Lotha, an Economics graduate from Nagaland, cherishes the ideal of a Hum Do, Hamare Do family, ‘‘I can’t think of marrying or even having a girlfriend until I clear the exams.’’ The only distraction Lotha allows in his study area is a scribbled-on poster of Hollywood hottie Alicia Silverstone.
You’ll never bump into the IAS aspirant on a regular day. If you want to seek him out, remember the following must-check-out places. In Delhi University’s North Campus, they peer at you from youth hostels and anonymous one-room shacks, mostly dazed, at times revelling in their cubbyhole existence. In N-41, Mukherji Nagar — a three-storeyed building in the University area — for example, each austere floor is home to four IAS aspirants (that makes a total of 12 men), all in their 20s, all in different stages of preparation.
Srinivas Kolli, a 27-year-old MBA graduate from Vishakhapatnam, gave up his marketing job with Videocon International, and landed in Delhi to prepare for the IAS. ‘‘I lived in a hostel in Vizag where everyone was preparing for the civil service exams, and before I knew it, I was hooked,’’ he grins. An addiction? So it would seem. Srinivas’ college mate Vijay Babu is a veteran at the IAS exam. Next year, the qualified mechanical engineer will sit for the Mains (chosen subjects: History and Geography) for the third time.
What if he doesn’t clear the exam? ‘‘I’ll try again and again till I do,’’ answers Babu, chagrined at the very thought. While rules are relaxed for SC/ST and OBC candidates, who command 50 per cent of all bureaucratic posts every year, regular candidates can take the civil services exam up to four times. The upper age limit for regular candidates has also been extended from 28 to 30 years. But while the number of exam takers hovers between one and one-and-a-half lakh every year, barely 400 make it into the services.
In the opposite direction from Delhi University is another nerve centre for the IAS aspirant, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where a section of the library has been named Dholpur House, after the UPSC headquarters. Dholpur House is almost always deathly still, but that’s not because there’s no human presence. Every table is host to a row of bent heads, busy cramming the brain with book-loads of information, or taking practice tests.
‘‘They take the IAS exam as a mission and fight till the end,’’ says A. K. Mishra, Director, Chanakya IAS Academy, of these young men (and some women). Coaching classes at the Chanakya Academy, conducted by 96 faculty members, run into six hours every day, six days a week. Of the present batch of 300 students, says Mishra, a majority are from Bihar, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.
‘‘The craze to enter the civil services is strongest among the youth from these states,’’ he observes. In the 10 years of the Academy’s existence, 40 per cent of all candidates have been from Bihar.
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