Everything happens for a good cause !

I'm coming to terms with the fact that things don’t always happen in life as we plan it, more than a month after the declaration of the mains result.

I was indeed better prepared to deal with the negative results this time around when compared to my earlier attempt, but it still hurts a great deal.

An immediate reassuring reasoning that helped me was that it could have been worse if I had gone to the interview stage and not made it in the final list. Last year, the final results of the civil services were out just a day before the prelims of this year were scheduled.
I can’t even imagine what would have gone through the minds of all those who attended last year’s interview and did not find a place in the final list

One of the most comforting and soothing mails I received was quoting the Bhagvat Gita saying that everything happens for a good cause and that when a door closes another one opens.

Just three days later the final results of a major public sector bank was out and it lessened the pain. But it still is only a very small consolation.

The Signature Scare

The email signature of a well meaning friend in Bombay read thus:
'Plan a career within a life; not a life within a career'

It hit me like a billion pound sledgehammer. And I was forced into deep introspection.

It has certainly taken longer than I had imagined, for the Civil Services dream to fructify.

Have my friends and classmates stolen a march over me in life?
Is my friend pointing this out to me rather politely??

What are the alternatives that I could have pursued?
A corporate career that involves spending at least 12 hours in office, another 3 hours stuck in the traffic, an unhappy and whining wife who complains about lack of time spent together, non-existent social life, perpetual overworked state, constant anxiety about job-loss and promotions?

For a couple of days I was a little disoriented...

But then I recouped...

In the last several months that I have been jobless and preparing for the exams how much lead have my class mates stolen over me?

A lot of them have got married.
Being single is a happy situation, that doesn’t really bother me at all

A few have become dads/moms.
Again...not something I’m really envious of

Most have booked a flat and bought a car.
And when I realise that these very acts in some ways have tied them down financially with hefty loans and daunting EMIs; I feel a lot better with just my rented place and Bajaj Discover.

A career in the civil services is far superior to anything else on offer in India.
In the long run, I reckon I’m going to be better off with a satisfying career and the fringe benefits that will accrue

An ASSOCHAM Survey findings of July 2007 is very re-assuring

In the survey titled ‘Have Civil Services Lost their Charm with Advancement in Liberalisation’, 80 per cent of the 300 young executives from the corporate sector said that the IAS, IFS, and IPS drew the best talent contrary to impressions that flight of talent had shifted towards private sector with advancing liberalisation.

The assertion that civil services is losing its sheen is totally out of place and disparaging as every aspirant cannot withstand the rigours of the layers of civil service examination, said ASSOCHAM president, Venugopal N. Dhoot.

No, it’s not as bad as my friend’s signature line makes it out to be.
Even if it takes a few extra months, it’s still very much worth it.

The IAS/IFS dilemma

The time has finally come to make a decision.
The Civil Services mains application form has finally arrived.
Been thinking off and on about this for a long time now, and its time to indicate one’s preference for the various services on offer under the combined Civil Services.
The choice between Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Administrative service is what is giving me sleepless nights.

When it comes to the IFS, I certainly find the idea of seeing the world very exciting.
But I worry about my children growing up with un-Indian values.
The idea of a life long paid holiday sounds too good to be true. But then, power and responsibility go hand in hand. Don’t they? If it’s a life long holiday, I am more likely to be powerless and irrelevant, and I wouldn’t be able to make a difference.
The prospect of getting the least political interference on a day to day basis is exhilarating which is true for the IFS.
Is the lack of interference because one is not doing anything terribly significant?
A Foreign posting, to whichever part of the world it’s going to be, will be in the best cities of that nation.
Should I not be worried about losing my roots in the long run?!
Will I really enjoy all the cultural differences and climatic variations around the world?
Will I miss the power and prestige associated with the administrative services? Will I not be able to do for my folks if I’m in India?
Can I not always go on a holiday abroad opting for the IAS service instead?
Does the IAS not give opportunities for foreign travel?
All other things go right and I make it to the IAS …will I be assigned a lawless State?

India is going to change in unforeseen ways in the next two decades. Do I want to miss out all that action by being away? India in these times is not the India of a few decades ago …which is why one finds less and less top rankers opting for the Foreign Service. Two decades ago, the Foreign Service was the automatic choice of the top twenty rankers. Not anymore, the majority are making the administrative service their automatic choice lately.

It’s a complicated thought process and I need to make a decision and SOON.

A-Person- like- me moment

‘A Person like me’.

This is one of the key responses that Market Researchers look for in questionnaires administered to a test group in a Pre-ad test.

Pre ad tests are conducted by Advertising/Market Research companies to assess/pre-determine the effectiveness, usefulness & impact among other things of a certain newly created ad.

To do all of the above, the ad in question is shown to the test group masked as a clutter. A good example of a clutter that can be used to test the effectiveness of say, a Pril dish wash bar would be the following bunch of TV ads in random order:

Santoor sandalwood soap

Pond’s cold cream

Lakme nail polish

Pril dish wash bar

Wheel detergent powder

The target group is led to believe that the exercise is aimed at conducting TV/media studies to avoid prejudicing/biasing its responses.

Once the respondent has seen the clutter, she is taken through a questionnaire.
Among the scores of multiple choice questions, appears the one below

The said product would normally be used by ______________ (Tick all that apply)

- Working women

- Upper Class Women

- Educated Women

- Women like me

- Housewives

- Teenagers

- Fashionable women

- Middle class women

The researcher only cares if the response ‘Women like me’ is ticked; the other responses are dummy ones really.

If an ad is able to evoke/evince a response from a respondent to the effect that the advertised product or service is relevant/useful/used/essential to/by/for ‘people like me’, that means a great lot to the advertiser!

Phew, that has been a long introduction ….

So why exactly am I talking about Market Research here?

I had a person-like-me moment last week when the results of the civil service exams 2007 were announced. A friend who secured All India Rank 14 caused this.

This does two things to me:

Boosts confidence level and motivation to astronomical levels :-)

On the flip side, there is this huge pressure to match or better that. One can no longer be contented with a rank like 372 or 531!

Impartiality of the UPSC

The ‘efficient’ folks at UPSC take as much as a month to reveal the detailed marks of the written exams after declaring if one has qualified for the interview or not.( The whole exam process takes as much as 16 months!. There are comparable exams like CAT which is also taken by an equal number of students but the final results of the latter are out in under 5 months!!)

It is during this one month’s period that one’s thoughts go wild that stem from the disbelief of having not cleared the mains.

Not getting an interview call makes one immediately question the fairness and impartiality of UPSC and also the alignment of certain stars in the celestial space that might potentially have had a say in the disastrous outcome.

Did my papers reach a certain drunken professor?

Was my paper corrected immediately after s/he quarreled with her/his spouse?

Were my liberal views on the ‘dance bars’ question in the GS paper seen as lack of Indianess by the orthodox elderly professor who disapproves of all kinds of dances?

Were my mildly leftist views in the GS papers not taken too kindly by the capitalist gentleman/lady who evaluated it?

DS called to discuss and analyze his mains results and to reaffirm our faith in the impartiality and fairness of UPSC. He sounded upbeat and optimistic. Gone were the uncertain what ifs of the past month.

He had scored an astonishing 170/ 300 (56.67%) in paper I of Geography (Optional I) and a respectable 140/300 (46.67%) in paper I of Psychology (Optional II).

Why the superlative adjectives against the scores that borders around the halfway percentage mark? Those not in the know might wonder.

Here is why:

The UPSC Mains written exams for civil services is set for a total of 2000 marks divided as follows:

300 each for the Paper I and paper II of optional I adding up to 600 for optional I

300 each for the Paper I and paper II of optional II adding up to 600 for optional II

300 each for the Paper I and paper II of the mandatory General Studies paper adding up to 600 for GS

200 for Essay Writing in English.

A score in the neighborhood of 1050 takes things to the next level and gets one an Interview call. Clearly the key to an interview call is scoring a little over 52.5% in all of these papers individually.

And if one scores a whopping 55 %, one is talking about a higher rank and a service of one’s choice.

What is comforting in the situation is the knowledge that a score in optional I added up to 270/600 as 170/300 + 100/300 and not as 133/300 + 137/300. The former indicates that one is capable of breaching the 55% barrier and that with effort the 100 of paper II can be brought to the neighborhood of 150.

The later case is worrisome because, one is unsure of one’s writing skills and keeps wondering if one’s best written answers are at all capable of giving decent scores.

With his faith restored, DS has vowed to redouble his efforts.

The Interview call that never came :(

One puts in everything for the Mains. So not getting an interview call can be quite shattering. The most destructive and self defeating of thoughts begin to creep in. “Can I possibly do better than what I have already done. Haven’t I worked really really hard? I haven’t made it despite all that. Do I really stand a chance in which case?"

Though one wouldn’t admit it openly, just about everyone who writes the Mains exams expects an interview call. This is probably because they gain confidence after clearing the first hurdle in the form of the Prelims. And everyone positively works really really hard in the few weeks separating the declaration of Prelims results and the Mains examination.

Even if one is a little less satisfied with a certain answer in the Optional paper and that bouncer in the General Studies paper that only economists/historians can answer, weeks after the Mains exams one tends to actually forget one’s performance. That is the optimist in one, becomes increasingly assertive and dominant in wishful thinking.

It’s very demoralizing and painful and takes weeks to get over.
So when DS called from Delhi to unburden his heart, I lived through the pain and bitterness of summer of 2007 all over again.

I tried my best to put him at ease and cheer him up, but deep down we both knew that it was actually a matter of time.