Road to IAS - Better THINK TWICE!

It all started in the month of August 2013 but later it went viral since January 2014 and the voyage for the August 24, 2014 flags off. Days, weeks then months tends to loose their validity as the D-day was getting closer, closer and closer. First of all, I want to make one thing clear at this juncture that this exam is not for cozy students. The sole purpose of this exam is to violently takes away all the leisure's and makes you cry for every bit. So better THINK TWICE for this exam as once you opted for this then the balls in your undies will suffer the 1000-volt shock day-by-day. Coming to the point that this exam demands perseverance, hard work and more often patience. Once you envisages these three qualities then start working with them along with the qualitative time management. The quintessential part of this epic trip is the qualitative (not quantitative) study.

      When I started thinking seriously about this exam, I already wasted my one attempt (2013, probably one of the easiest set of prelims I ever noticed but ultimately UPSC taught me a lesson that ‘Rome was not built in a day’) and now it was a do or die situation for me as I was marginalized by the colleagues in office that you never took it seriously and blah..blah..blah. So I decided to confront this situation by taking UPSC seriously this year (2014) and started preparing vigorously for this year prelims. One thing is sure for UPSC preparation that you need ample supply of time to study 360 degree  so it would not be possible for me to do office and study in tandem. I decided to take study leave of about a year but soon it turned out to be shooting in the pants for me. The process for availing study leave was a cumbersome task for an employee (but not for officers), my paperwork, documents, files all got stuck in between the various departments for clearance and in the last I got a straight answer from my presiding officer that you are not eligible for this particular leave. I guess I fallen prey to red-tappism. This whole shit consumed my one-and-half month while I was running from North Pole to South Pole for sanctioning of it but in the end it got turned down. Then I decided to go for leave without informing the authorities that means in official language ‘absconding from duty’ and for that you are liable for further departmental actions. As I said earlier that it was like a ‘Do or Die’ situation for me, I opted for going off duty without informing the authorities. March 11,2014 was my last day in office (at that time I thought it was my last day as I vowed to never come back here again). Now from that day my voyage for the August 24 begins with a bang.

 Round 1:                 

             

This particular round started in mid-March and from here I explored all the weird spider webbed lookalike books and thoroughly read them at first. It all continued till June with thorough reading and short notes on the side bars of book, making it easier for me to revise them at the short notice. At the first instance I was really unable to understand that what I am reading is actually going into my mind or not? I tried not to stop at that time and continued till the whole book was finished. Books after books of different subjects mostly NCERTs comprising of Class VI to XII. Rarely I went for any reference books with exception in Economics and Geography. These two subjects were probably the most time consuming and still I need some more time to understand the very basics. However I managed to complete the task in the stipulated time frame and there comes the time for ONE-TIME revision and some quintessential practice for the CSAT.

Round 2:

July starting and with only 50 days to spare I have to cover the whole syllabus with the mighty ‘The Hindu’ newspaper notes, the chronic two very important websites; One is ‘www.pib.nic.in’ and the other one is ‘www.mrunal.org’ and lethal ‘CSAT’ practice plus you have to make sure that your ‘Mains preparation’ does not get affected by all this (I was confident enough to crack the Prelims. Well in my case I thought that Prelims is just a 100 meter sprint while Mains is most probably ‘Steeplechase race’with full of hurdles and pitfalls). I think mocking at the Prelims was my biggest mistake (though yet to be proven as result has still not come). So coming back to the story, in those 50 days and with every day passing you would want to cover as much as possible but that’s the wrong strategy my friend. One thing I must learned from here that Just stick to what you had learned in those 6 months or a year. No new experiments, no new flying high just be on the bottom.. stick to the basics and no bloody commission will be ever dare to stop you. However make sure that what you studied behind was qualitative one not quantitative.

Strategy for CSAT is just like derivation of NEWTON’s third law of motion i.e.” For Every ACTION there is an EQUAL and OPPOSITE reaction.” In other words, Practice as much as you can. Daily practice of mathematical sums will bear you fruit definitely and yeah one the most important thing that you should do these sums in a quick successions. For lengthy and critical comprehension; simply read them, analyse them and make sure you read them only once because no matter how many time you are reading them, conclusion will always be the same i.e. ‘Not able to understand’. So better hit them at one go with proper underlining of essential parts of comprehension. Now lets discuss some Reasoning part of CSAT. UPSC never asks tricky question from reasoning part but its like hitting them in the exams. If you missed then you himself have to pay for this.

Round 3:

A week before this messy exam is very crucial in the sense that this particular week is going to be the hardest time of your life. Your mind starts sinking.. heart-rate beeps high.. depression hovering around you.. and this is a normal thing which happens to each and every candidates who are bracing themselves for the upcoming big fight. Try to be calm and do mild revision. Focus on the goal and do things which make you happy. Enjoy the moment because once you reached that D-Day, life will no longer be yours. It would be at the mercy of that day and the bloody commission.. Screw You! My friend watched movies and all that shitty stuff at that penultimate week and me too a bit. Spare yourself with  some time and analyse the situation in your mind whether it is going to click for you on the D-Day and say ‘YES, it would’ and more often ‘YES, I CAN’.

Round 4:

The day before D-Day… Ahh!! Tingles running over your body.. shit happening many times in a day.. stomach ache.. fucking cramps in body.. memory loss.. BP jumps to double ton.. freaking dreams.. you are in dire need of booze, 69mm stick and dope but unfortunately you can’t take those high doses.. for God sake not the day before D-Day. You are high.. thinking high.. starts praying million times.. fucking bullshit! Heart stops supporting you.. Mind fucked up hard.. fingers cramped. I did covered the whole shit which happened to me at that day but wait “Raat toh abhi baki hai mere dost”!!

The Dark kNight Rises.. No sight of sleep.. scary dreams.. fainted squint eyes.. moreover  you couldn't utilize your loaded gun to release the pressure before the D-Day!! Hands off the pants.. You want to talk to your girl but what should you talk.. words messed up inside your Adam’s apple. Holy shit!! No one would understand your feeling except your lovely mother and the girl which you loves the most. They can pacify the emotions pouring out of your shivering body but you are not going to disturb them because you are ideal person like Lord Rama. You vowed to take this situation head-on by yourself but as we all know ‘in good movies.. Heroes had to die in the end’. So better lie down and close your eyes .. disconnect your brain from your body.. pretend to be brain-dead. Because the next day you will have to chase down your dream and beat the hell out of it as everybody else would also do the same. This 100 meter sprint between approx 5 lakhs aspirant would be the largest, biggest and deadliest showdown of your life.

Round 5:

The D-Day.. You woke up early like you never slept before. Your day-dreaming of past one year would either end today or it will convert into a real story. Dizziness.. sour throat.. cracked eyes.. cramped body.. and the king of all ‘Your Mental Mind’.. it will all happen at that day. You went to loo but nothing comes out.. you took shower but body resist to take that. Body rejects meal at that day. You call your family members, friends, elders, teachers for the good wishes. Somehow you would be able to hold your breathe. You fold your hands in front of Almighty and requests that ‘Make my day, today’ .. you want to cry but you soon hold it for the day.

We all know one thing for sure.. whether we lose or won that day some persons always have constant belief on you that You will always win the battle. You are a son to someone.. you are someone’s love.. they all have firm belief over you. Now the real pressure come from here. How can you destroy all those feelings.. You messed up again. The barometer goes high..high and high.

Then there comes the time for the battle.. your equipment's are ready, shining and lethal. You are recollecting everything just when you step inside the examination hall. You gained your vanished confidence and bingo time. Now you can screw the commission and you have that capability. You take a deep breathe, identify your class, cross-check your seat (four-times) with the roll number printed on document.

Invigilator confirms your appearance and now officially you can’t run away from the hall. Either you will perish fighting their like the most number of the candidates or you will taste success with some limited number of aspirants. But you can’t choose your destiny because beggars don’t have choices.

Bell rang for distribution of question paper and rest *beeped off* instantly. Story never ends but it’s the character which ends in the end. I will not tell you what happened next or after the exam. Its better that UPSC tells that because I have no hold over it neither do anyone but only UPSC.

I am writing this short experience of mine while dealing with the lethal virus i.e. UPSC. I knew sometime if not this time I will knock you out but I will knock you out.. that’s sure! You know I am still alive and ‘ALIVE IS AWESOME’ (somewhere heard in the TV advertisement.. don’t expect royalty for quoting your quotation). The more you fall.. the more you tend to rise, I guess!

Time to close it down as I don’t want my blog post to be a boring, screwed essay of a hyper guy who failed (seems to) and turned all its anger to the readers of this blog post.

One thing I should say in the end that *quote*  ‘I did my best to survive but may be my best was not better than the best and I could have done better.’ *unquote*