How SHE became an IAS officer - Surabhi Gautam ( Abhi.S , Bsc. Mathematics , 1st year )

How SHE became an IAS officer

-       Surabhi Gautam

She is the most successful person. She cleared all the top prestigious exams and interviews in India. But in this video she is not talking more about her success instead she is talking more about her failures, her rejections and her determination, will power that made her to achieve those success. She lived in a small sleepy village in Madhya Pradesh with a small population of barely thousand people. She was born in an orthodox Brahmin family which was giant and joint with more than 30 members. Her birth was a great news for her parents but for others it was just a normal affair. But in 25 years she made her name to be called by and known by the whole village.

     She got admission in a hindi medium Madhya Pradesh board school. In fifth class, something big happened in her life that she still remembers. She scored 100 out of 100 marks in mathematics and it was a board exam. Her teacher told that she has done a great job and she could learn more and achieve something in her life. At that day she felt appreciated and recognized and told that in future she is going to be a studious girl because due to her studies she was recognized and appreciated. So she started to focus more on studies and started to do many extracurricular activities. She was also busy in pujas with the village priest. She did not pay attention to the pain that arised in her body after having this busy schedule. After sometime she was bedridden. So she went to the doctor. She was having rheumatic fever. In this disease, at first, it would be body pain after that it attacks the heart and then they disturb semilunar valve. Some cases it would lead to death. The solution was to give dose of penicillin. The problem was that she had to inject with this in every 15 days and in her village it was difficult to do this because in some cases it may lead to death. She faced lot of problems in her life like no electricity, no tuition and condition of the school was bad. Then the second best thing of her life happened that was her 10^th result. She scored full marks in mathematics and science. She became popular and pseudo-celebrity in her village. Her interview was taken by a news interviewer. He asked many questions but at last he asked her that what she want to become. She doesn’t had any answer but the interviewer told her to tell a specific goal. She suddenly thought and told collector. Next day she was shocked to see the newspaper headline, it was written that she want to be a collector. She passed her 12^th and got APJ Abdul Kalam Scholarship for attaining maximum marks in science stream. She went to the bog city of Bhopal and took admission for Bachelor of Engineering. She was the first girl from her village that came to city of college for higher studies. She represented the whole village. Her first day of college was her worst day. She couldn’t do experiments because there were no labs in her village and one test tube fell from her. Her favourite subject is physics but she couldn’t answer a basic question asked to her, not because she didn’t knew the answer, it was because she didn’t know to speak in English since she studied in a hindi medium school. That day she cried a lot and she called her parents and told that she is coming back. But they told that if she comes back then she is closing the doors of other girls in her village. She decided to fight and told herself that she would be fluent in English at the end of the semester. She took words from her engineering books and stuck them on walls. She revised it all the time that her dreams were also in English. In first semester she topped the whole university. That day she realised that if we want to achieve something anyhow you could find the means for it by yourself. She passed her college at the age of 20 and a half. For UPSC exam minimum age is 21. So she wrote GATE,ISRO,BARC,SAIL and PPSC exams and after 6 months she wrote IES exam. She qualified all the exams. First call letter was from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. She was excited about her interview. Even though she got negative feedback she appeared the interview. She qualified and became a nuclear scientist. She shifted to Mumbai. She was the first lady in India to top the engineering service exam and her marks were maximum in the history of UPSC till date. Then she joined Indian Railways through engineering service and her training started in Secunderabad. Finally she decided to enjoy and be happy in her life but was not able to do that. She called her mother and her mother asked whether she remembers her 10^th class interview. She read the news again and again. Then decided to prepare for civil service examination. It is the toughest exam in the whole world. For this exam, students spend 24 hrs of their life. Since she had her job, she only got 3 to 4 hrs to learn. But still she decided to go for it. She learned in the train using her tab during her working time too. She felt frustrated and felt like giving up. So she complained to her mother that she wasn’t able to enjoy her life as a child  and now after getting a sarkari job. Then her mother told that at the age of 23 she had 3 children and about so many responsibilities and struggles of her life. She also told that Surabhi did not have any social responsibility, family responsibility, all she has is her dream. That day she stopped complaining to her mother. She decided to be more strong when she struggled more. Finally she got All India Rank 50 in the Civil Service Exam. She believed in a line that made her dream success.

The line is, “ There is no substitute for hardwork and there is no shortcut to success”.