Post Mains Reflections

Two weeks after the exams it does not feel like it was a strenuous week at all.

Appearing for nine 3-hour long exams in a span of six days had seemed tiring, exhausting and grossly unfair. Just two weeks later it all seems to have been fair and just!

Probably explains why nobody talks about altering the scheme of exams when asked about it later in the interview!! (More often than not the last question asked to interviewees is whether they had any suggestions to make to alter/improve the scheme of the examination). By the time the interview takes place the mains exam would be too distant an occurrence in the past to even remotely feel like a bothersome experience.


There is a complete feeling of ennui these days and coupled with the fact that I’m not even reading the newspapers with any regularity, I have now got too much time on my hands...he he. Oh But yes I need to read about Budhism, the Mauryans and the Guptas… the topics that kind of interested me when I was going through those phases of Indian history earlier. (My fascination for the Mughals continues)

I have to confront the question of starting to work again pretty soon.

I really can’t be sure of an interview call. Actually no body ever can be. But just about everyone who writes the mains is mildly expectant unless otherwise it turned to be an outright disaster :-)

I did not do the papers too badly, probably did it significantly better than my 2006 attempt. But one can never tell with these subjective papers. A great deal depends on who corrects the papers as well.

The Public Administration paper for one was way too general ...just about anybody could have written it ...and way too unpredictable...I like the unpredictably part of the UPSC question papers ...takes the wind out of the sail of the dedicated Delhi based coaching institutes ...he he

UPSC is always mindful of the fact that exam has to be made unfair to everyone, which makes it fair to everyone in a weird sense ...like it is said ...’Life isn’t fair, but it is unfair to everyone, that makes it fair’!!

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.

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

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.

He thinks it was just average !

He quoted Nirad C Chaudhary. "The average Indian male has sex on his mind and fear in his heart". And explained further, “Though we have sex on our minds, because of the fear in our hearts, imbibed from our value systems, there hasn’t been much violence against women. But lately, because of globalisation and other factors, the fear in the heart has been decreasing. Also, the sex on the mind is increasing, thanks to the soft porn in the media. This explains the increasing violence against women.”

And this was in response to a lady member of the UPSC interview board who asked HK why violence against women was increasing and what could be done about it.

I wonder if anyone can better that answer.
Apart from the original thinking, presence of mind and maturity, it displays among other things a great sense of humor.

Despite brilliant answers like these HK doubts if his interview went well, primarily because he wasn’t asked ‘expected’ questions on one’s bio-data and ‘home-state’ on which UPSC has a reputation of asking a barrage of questions, for which one goes with more than adequate preparations.

Me thinks HK's doubts are entirely misplaced.

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.

Hurray. the acknowldegent card finally arrives !!

Sigh!
What a relief!

The acknowledgement card has finally arrived (!!) from the UPSC confirming the receipt of my application for the 2008 prelims exams. But why the euphoria? It’s just an acknowledgement card saying that one’s application form has been received. No it’s not the final letter of selection or the interview call letter not even the application form for the mains exams.

Apparently, only the applicant will realize how central the acknowledgement card is to his scheme of things and to his peace of mind.

Most non first-time CS aspirants are in most of the cases just waiting for the notification by the UPSC to appear in the Employment News to mail the application form.
This is because UPSC uses a pre-designed computer process able application from for all the exams that it conducts. The applicant can fill in (darken the bubbles) of 97 % of the application even before the formal announcement calling for application is made in the month of Dec every year. This being the case the application is promptly mailed a day or two after the notification appears in the Employment News with all the details. The acknowledgement card is a self addressed stamped card which is part of the application form that is sent to the UPSC along with one’s application.

Having mailed the form, one eagerly awaits for the acknowledgement card from UPSC.
A week later there is no sight of the acknowledgement card. One takes it in stride because of one’s understanding of the Indian postal service. A fortnight later one is a little more disturbed and reasons out that Delhi airport is fogged out this time of the year and what with the flights getting cancelled and re-scheduled it should only be matter of days before the acknowledgment finally arrives.

Ideally anywhere in India, an acknowledgement to any letter if it’s meant to be sent should reach even in the worst case scenario in under 15 days. Even if the letter is sent from Agartala and the intended recipient is in Tuticorin.

There is also this nervousness and tension fuelled by the such wild thoughts that the anxious mind comes up with to justify the possibility of one’s letter not reaching UPSC (what if there were termites in the rusty old letter box, what if the postman was careless, dammit why did I not send it by speed post, serves me right for trying to save 40 rupees)

A couple of days later, one begins to call up friends all over to see if they have had any luck with the acknowledgement form. Oh sigh GU lives in Delhi, and she has hand-delivered the application form. SK is in Delhi again, he too has opted for hand delivery. HK had grown wiser from the agonies of previous years. He did not attempt to save 40 rupees and had sent it by speed post.SD doesn’t really care if she receives it. She is taking the exams like zillions of others as a national past time. Besides she has options. She is considering doing her PhD.

20 days after sending the form, one considers sending a second application form this time by speed post. But then one remembers the previous year’s instance when two application forms were sent fuelled by anxiety and subsequent receipt of both the acknowledgment card weeks after the last date of submission of applications was long over.

And then there are also friends who are in similar or worse state of mental agony who call up from Hyderabad two days before the last date of submission discussing the possibility of air dashing to Delhi, to resubmit the form by hand.
One’s financial resources does not permit an air dash to Delhi …grrr…why did I not re-send the application from a week earlier ( what if the termites had really eaten up the envelope this time )

Apparently nobody at UPSC gives a damn about such (misplaced?) anxieties of students. What do they care? In all probability all the application forms received by them are dumped into a huge bin only to be processed weeks later, after the last date for submission of application forms is long over.

Which is why SD’s casual comment, rings like that of an informed insider “Oh if you are among the first ones to send the application form, you will be among the last ones to receive your acknowledgement card”.