How Darshan Overcame 4 Prelims Failure to get into IRS while Being a Working Professional
Published by
DecodeCIVILS – Mudit Jain
on
Inspirational journey of Darshan Priyadarshi, IRS from not being able to clear Prelims 4 times in a row to becoming IRS officer with his very first Mains and Interview! (While working in a bank)
His journey in his own words:
The journey of UPSC has been nothing less than a roller coaster ride for me. I have gone through lots of ups and downs before seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, in this era of internet and aware digital citizenry you guys might be knowing all the do’s and don’ts of this unpredictable UPSC journey. But if you hit some right buttons, keep certain values like persistence, honesty, positivity, and faith in yourself and then with a little luck shining, you can definitely see your name in the list.
Well, my journey was a little different in the sense that despite being motivated and focused through my college years, I was clear about my aim and goal, but then due to certain personal circumstances, I had to take up a job right after my college. So, in the final year of my college, towards the end, I got a job in a bank as a P.O (probationary officer) and took it up. But then somehow I was not satisfied completely and always hoped to clear the civil service examination someday. But then, its definitely not a cake walk right?
I began my preparations from my home itself simultaneously with my job. Initially, I took help of google baba, youtube, topper talks and so on and so forth. But I guess then my preparations were never streamlined in the first place, I feel when I see in retrospection.
STUMBLING BLOCK 1 – OPTIONAL SELECTION
I was immensely confused with respect to optional selection; I was confused whether to go for chemistry as the subject had a strong relation with respect to my academic background or any other conventional scoring subject? But then after giving it a lot of thought and analysing the past scoring patterns, syllabus etc. I narrowed down to Gujarati Literature as my optional. Key aspects to keep in mind while selecting optional:
COMFORTABILITY
UNDERSTANDABILITY
COURSE MATERIAL
PREVIOUS YEAR PATTERNS AND SCORES
AND AT THE END OF THE DAY WHETHER YOU HAVE IN IT YOU TO KEEP UP WITH THE SUBJECT WITH EVERY NEXT ATTEMPT UNTIL YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL.
THE NEXT AND THE MOST DIFFICULT BLOCK FOR ME: PRELIMS
Since 2013 I started appearing for UPSC but couldn’t overcome the first level itself, prelims always had been an Achilles heel for me. Every time I saw the list checked my roll no it wasn’t there until 2017 (successive 4 years of failures at prelims stage). Now when I analyse things, I can clearly make out that which was missing. With time and repeated readings and preparations, it definitely helped in my content building, clarity, and concept building. However, the biggest aspect was time management, persistence and keeping hope alive that yes it is possible and I can do it. With the full time at job at bank, I always struggled to strike a fine balance between my job, family life and then preparations. Somewhere I feel that by 2016-17 in conjunction with repeated defeat at prelims stage, I worked hard and squeezed every bit of time I could to see my dream come true.
My typical day at bank started at 10 am for which I had to start by 9 am minimum. And had to work till minimum 7-8 pm, this got stretched to even 9 pm during the demonetisation phase. So by evening when I came home tired and exhausted, after dinner and freshening up, I would start basic brushing up of reading material which I could manage after a tiring day at office, I would go for newspaper reading, video lectures of various ongoing events etc. and then retire for the day. My detailed and serious study started early morning at 3am to 9am with a coffee/tea break in between. This was my study time table for most of the time. I managed a few days of leave during mains and roughly 10-12 days during prelims, rest I had to stick to the above mentioned routine. It was difficult initially to adapt and had to overcome lot of inertia had to give up my family life too, but then having an understanding and supporting wife and family really anchored my preparations.
PERSISTENCE/POSITIVITY
Every time I checked my prelims results it seriously hurt a lot when the pdf search read “no results found”. Definitely like every other individual I felt a bit low, dejected, but then I knew if I had to see myself there someday I need to pull my socks up again and give it all one more time. I guess every time I failed I learned somethings and came back a little better, came back stronger. I would like to mention here that despite clearing G.S prelims paper1 in 2016 but was unable to clear CSAT that year, here I would like to give every aspirant a serious piece of advice. You need to take one step at a time and take every exam in isolation, for instance due to repeated failure in prelims I was seriously worried and worked up after paper1 in 2016, so despite being okay enough to clear csat I couldn’t control and couldn’t help but keep thinking about paper1 and as such ended up failing in csat by couple of marks. I however rectified it and imbibed all the learnings throughout and kept calm in my next attempt. And finally I made it to the next level.
After prelims, I was all pumped up and didn’t want this opportunity to go, so I consolidated my materials stick to them and repeatedly revised them. Some basic materials like mrunal.org, vision IAS, and other regular standard sources. All of this along with guidance of couple of seniors who had already made it, streamlined my preparations and efforts thereby helping me to attempt my mains diligently and with the maximum preparations that I could manage under the given constraints and circumstances. I cleared the mains and eventually reached to interview stage and then finally made it to the list too.
I guess this is pretty much of it all, I deliberately focussed more on the other aspect of preparations and not on the standard aspects like sources, what to study and what not to, this you like me can find it easily across the online platforms. But I felt that this journey of mine motivates all the aspirants who can’t make it in the initial attempts and get demotivated.
I would like to say just this in the end that sheer perseverance, smart & hard work, along with optimism and the zeal to succeed, taking every failure in your stride and moving forward would definitely take you folks there, yes you guessed it right, I meant your name in the coveted holy pdf of final results!! It worked for me, it will work for you too I am sure.
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