From the memoir: A former IAS officer recalls his preparations for the UPSC examination

The UPSC examination at that time required candidates to take three compulsory papers: General Knowledge, General English and Essay. You could select any three additional subjects of your choice in what was called the lower level, and another two of the higher level, making a total of eight papers to prepare for. In making my choice of papers I blundered badly. Armed with my evaluation of aptitude from school, I opted for a paper in Pure Mathematics.

I was in a peculiar situation of taking tuition in one subject (Math for which I paid Rs 80 per month) while at the same time I was teaching English (earning Rs 350 per month). In the process I neglected my other papers in History, a new subject for me at that level. In a childish move at dramatic effect, I assigned a separate corner in my study to different subjects selected for study. Notes for English, History, General Studies and Mathematics were accumulated separately in the four corners of the study. I moved melodramatically from one corner to the next, even as for months the floor beneath remained unclean and unswept.

The test in Pure Mathematics, though, turned out to be a fiasco. The syllabus for the paper included 13 sub-groups of different topics. I had prepared for just five of those, confident that I would manage the answers. When I opened the question paper, I was dismayed to find that the examiner had (perversely, to my mind) left out most of the topics that I had focused on. Most of the question paper itself was beyond my comprehension.

Surprisingly in the two papers in history, an unfamiliar subject, I did well. In the end result, my scores in the other papers enabled me to make up for the dismal shortfall in Pure Mathematics. This was for me a rude awakening. The lesson that I learnt was that one must seek counsel in making important decisions. Depending on your own judgment based on gut feeling can be disastrous. I enjoyed my foray into teaching, which began the very day I turned 20. I remember that I presented my very first pay packet to my grandmother, who accepted it hesitantly with tears in her eyes.

On this first assignment as a teacher, I faced two unexpected challenges. Firstly, to establish my credentials as a teacher with students, who were almost as old as me. Secondly, to ensure that my wards took the subject itself with due seriousness. The budding scientists considered English at best a fun subject, which they had perforce to clear as ordained. The solution that I devised made a virtue of a necessity. I assured my wards that, being close to them in age, I would treat them as my equals. I linked references in passages in the text with stories and myths from works of literature and even the scriptures. The method, which enlarged the ambit of the young students beyond the texts prescribed, helped me in building rapport with my audience. I took my pupils into the prophetic Brave New World of Aldous Huxley, knowing that scientific minds would be excited at the idea of propagation of the human race through technique of artificial insemination in the laboratory. Every little idiom in the English language has as its origin some myth or fable. I traced all such origins.

Balancing my commitments as a teacher with the pursuit of a highly competitive examination was not easy. At the end of my first year of teaching, I was technically confirmed as a University Tutor, which earned me a handsome increment of Rs 20 per month, in addition to my starting salary of Rs 350 per month.

I had requested the University authorities to grant me two months of leave for the critical test. This demand was declined, so I had to be content in taking short leave of absence for each day that my papers were scheduled.

When the results of the written test were declared in the month of December 1964, I was among the candidates who qualified for the next stage of the selection process, that is, the personality test by an elite panel of intellectuals. Knowing that my marks in one of the important papers were expected to be poor, this preliminary result was a pleasant surprise. I was now to face a group of formidable experts who would determine, on the basis of a half-hour interaction, if I was cut out to be an administrator. In those days there were some professional institutions, located mainly in the metropolitan cities, which prepared you for the personality test. I found that most candidates enrolled in such study circles, where they were taught skills in discussion, face-to-face interaction, and such matters as deportment and confidence building. The study circles also provided aspirants with appropriate reading material on topics anticipated to figure in the final trial.

I studied the guidelines of the UPSC on the personality test. These stated clearly that this final appraisal was not to test the knowledge per se of candidates, but to adjudge their overall suitability for the chosen service. I had disdain, illogical perhaps, for using any external support to mould character at short notice. I airily dismissed the need for personality development techniques, and decided to go virtually unprepared for the important event. It transpired that this iconoclastic approach assisted my performance before the august interviewers.

The board began with a leading question. Noting that I had been a proficient sportsman, the Chairman enquired why I did not join the Indian Police Service rather than the IAS. My unrehearsed reply, which could well have doomed me, was that my father, himself a serving police officer had advised me against joining his service. The obvious follow up question by a member was, “So, do you always go to your father for advice, or can you take decisions on your own?” This was a trap. Perhaps by luck, I responded, “Sir, I accept his advice, when it suits me.” This off-the-cuff reply was unexpected, and disarmed the Board. The members had a hearty laugh, and put me at total ease.

Their questions on English literature I handled comfortably, but when the discussion wandered to Mathematics, I pre-empted any grilling by stating simply that after my poor show in the Mathematics paper I wished to forget that subject, rather than discuss it further. This reply too would have won me some points. One of the members made a tricky observation that public schools were an unfair advantage for well-off students. My reply was that if the Government valued the quality of public schools, the solution lay in raising the standards in government schools, rather than castigate the elite schools.

On reviewing the personality test I felt vindicated in the approach I adopted, viz to let the Board judge me as I was, rather than my presenting them a tailor-made version of my personality. The end result of my struggle with the civil services examination was positive, but for my lasting remorse lingered that with a better strategy I could have done better. I remember that the UPSC had allotted me the roll number 13. That ominous number did not prove unlucky. Fate had been kind to me.

Excerpted with permission from Beyond the Trappings of Office: A Civil Servant’s Journey in Punjab, Rajan Kashyap, Paper Missile/Niyogi Books.