(ARTICLE) A map to the changing IAS route : Malyala Manorama

(ARTICLE) A map to the changing IAS route : Malyala Manorama

a) Success, b) Status, c) Security, d) Satisfaction, e) All of the above. A map to the changing IAS route
Narayan Prasad Jaiswal toiled at night so that morning would bring hope and money for the family's sustenance. His working day began at dusk, on a creaking cycle-rickshaw outside Varanasi railway station. Pilgrims to the holy town sustained Jaiswal and his family of five. A couple of years ago, he stopped pedalling the rickshaw because of a festering wound on his right foot. Life, in their one-room hutment on the city's fringes, suddenly seemed darker for the family. Though Jaiswal turned to repairing rickshaws, his foot got worse because of lack of proper medical care.
His son now hopes to set things right. After all, medical care is just one of the perks of the Indian Administrative Service. "Yes, that is a priority now that I have made it to the IAS," says Govind Jaiswal, 23, who studied hard for the civil services examination, especially during those hours when the looms of his weaver neighbours fell silent.

His journey to the IAS was like a ride on his father's rickshaw-anything but smooth. Jaiswal rarely knew the school or college his son went to, and is amazed at all the fuss over the exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. "Govind is suddenly being flooded with marriage proposals from the high and the mighty," says a friend. "He is being feted left, right and centre. This has made his father realise that IAS is probably something important."

Govind went to a neighbourhood school and a government college and topped all his exams. A seminar organised by New Delhi-based Sankalp, an NGO training IAS aspirants, and the kindness of Dharmendra Kumar, who runs a coaching institute, helped Govind crack the examination in his first attempt.
"I am amazed to see what this examination does to one's social status," says Govind. "In Class VI, I was hounded out of my neighbour's house because I was a rickshaw-puller's son. It was then that I vowed to clear the IAS after being told of 'this biggest examination of the land'. Today, the same neighbour says that he always knew I would make it big!"

While Govind's grit is common to most civil services aspirants, not everyone is as lucky. There are innumerable examples of students appearing for the IAS interview four times in a row, and failing. Often, brilliant students get ridiculously low marks (like many have in the General Studies-Paper II this year and last year). "In the last five years or so, the subjectivity employed by the examiners has been extremely disconcerting," says P.S. Ravindran, who runs a popular coaching institute.

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Courtesy: www.manoramaonline.com and Sriram IAS