Some relief finally :-)

Never intended to spend more than a week at home, but somehow it got stretched to a month. At the back of my mind I knew that it was a rare chance to spend an extended period of time at home.

I clear the prelims and I spend the next few months working my back side off concentrating on the mains and the interview , If I don’t pull it off I get back to the hectic and mechanical ways of corporate life with an annual holiday of a maximum of 2 weeks !

The most annoying thing about being at home is the curiosity of neighbours and relatives on the job front. In these parts, choosing not to work is not an option. If you are not working, you are just plain unemployable. That’s the way it is …no two ways about it

So if you are spending an extended time at home …you are jobless and worthless!!

There is no such thing as he is choosing not to work ….sigh. Oh and it sure does terrible things to your self esteem.

I used to time my evening walks. It’s a lot safer to venture out after sun down, ah and the non –existence of street lights is a boon indeed ;-)

Being in Bangalore is such a bliss …the neighbours don’t care what you do for a living. They don’t even care if you exist...ha ha

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As the dates for the declaration of results approach I worry incessantly…

Is all the effort that I put in reading that big fat book on the constitution going to be a huge waste of time?

Should I start posting my resumes again on Naukri and Monster? Hey, is the last date for the online application form for that PSU over?

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I’m back in Bangalore in time for the Olympics and yet not focused on my mains preparations :-(

As me is leisurely having a late lunch watching the swimmers at the Water Cube, VK2 rings up to know if I have cleared the prelims. Apparently the results were declared that afternoon. I get two more calls with similar queries before I can switch off the TV.

My hunger died instantly.

I fire up the PC and wait impatiently for the overloaded UPSC servers to respond. After what seemed like an eternity …I’m finally greeted with the following

Civil Services (Preliminary) Exam 2008
WRITTEN RESULT QUERY

Congratulations! Your Roll Number: XXXXXX figures in the list of successful candidates

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.