[How swine flu, dengue, internal bleeding and missing a 60 marker question became stepping stones to success]
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The declaration of UPSC-CSE 2016-17 results gives me a certain nostalgia as I relooked my own journey; of how marvellous and yet how challenging the ride was. Inevitably therefore, I reflected on its trail.
For many, the CSE journey began in college; some even in school. For me, it was my dad's constant prodding that made me take up the UPSC gauntlet, right after college, in 2009. Though it had been my dream to be a philosophy professor in Oxbridge or some Ivy League university instead, given my penchant and inborn ability for the same. Of course I did not succeed that first time I gave the exams. Could not even pass the preliminary screening test, thanks partly to my inadequate preparation, and partly to the fact I suffered from dysentry while giving my afternoon paper that day, so that the call of nature had to be answered and I had to leave my answers unfinished!
But that failure proved to be a damning indictment of my overconfidence, and a clarion call. I decided to focus my studies from that point forth, putting in the necessary labour and the hours required for the same; even renting a room in Ravindra Nagar, to "crack" this mother of exams. And then something struck again. Before I gave the 2010 prelims, my father almost died from acute kidney failure, with the recovery process itself a miracle; and not long after, I suffered from - of all possible diseases - swine flu.
And yet God remained provident, and I could give my prelims exam without any dysentry or related hassle. Then, several months later, the result was declared - on an afternoon when I was fast asleep.
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The declaration of UPSC-CSE 2016-17 results gives me a certain nostalgia as I relooked my own journey; of how marvellous and yet how challenging the ride was. Inevitably therefore, I reflected on its trail.
For many, the CSE journey began in college; some even in school. For me, it was my dad's constant prodding that made me take up the UPSC gauntlet, right after college, in 2009. Though it had been my dream to be a philosophy professor in Oxbridge or some Ivy League university instead, given my penchant and inborn ability for the same. Of course I did not succeed that first time I gave the exams. Could not even pass the preliminary screening test, thanks partly to my inadequate preparation, and partly to the fact I suffered from dysentry while giving my afternoon paper that day, so that the call of nature had to be answered and I had to leave my answers unfinished!
But that failure proved to be a damning indictment of my overconfidence, and a clarion call. I decided to focus my studies from that point forth, putting in the necessary labour and the hours required for the same; even renting a room in Ravindra Nagar, to "crack" this mother of exams. And then something struck again. Before I gave the 2010 prelims, my father almost died from acute kidney failure, with the recovery process itself a miracle; and not long after, I suffered from - of all possible diseases - swine flu.
And yet God remained provident, and I could give my prelims exam without any dysentry or related hassle. Then, several months later, the result was declared - on an afternoon when I was fast asleep.