 Hello everyone, welcome to Shangri-La's academy. The civil service examination result for this year has been announced and 993 aspirants have cleared this prestigious examination. So out of this 993 aspirants, 336 students are from Shangri-La's academy. So huge congratulations to all of them. Today we have with us Ms. Arya Vihem who have a second order in the rank of 36 with us. So welcome Arya and how do you congratulations to you from me and the whole center family. Oh thank you. Arya, how do you define this success? I usually follow a code by Winston Churchill that says that success is the ability to go from one failure to another without the laws of enthusiasm. So I was someone who prepared myself a lot to accept failure this time I must say because I thought me going to interview to be a good fit considering so many uncertainties that I faced in the preparation journey. So I thought the ability like I tried to master up as much energy as possible to try my best for the next problems I started solving question papers from 17th of April onwards which was five days after my interview and I was solving questions just two days before my results also. So I thought I defined success like that and even now I define success like the same like it is the ability to move from failure to another without the laws of enthusiasm and also to move from one success to another without having a sense of pride and also being condescending like condescendingly. Okay that's a great way to define success. Okay Arya, we all have that point of time that specific spark which makes us to do or not to do things. So according to you what was your initial spark to come into the civil services? Okay it happened sometime when I was in my 8th standard I was going on a bus and I saw a lot of things like littering over there and I don't know whether it will sound very philosophical or not. I saw very big bungalows and so many huts like standing adjacently. So it was just this whims and fancies of an 8th standard student who thought that an IPS officer or an IAS officer can make things right. Again it is something that movies instilled in me and that is that spark. Arya as you said you got the spark now you are in this journey. So we have as we have in the roads we have the twist that turns the red lights, the green lights, the ups, the downs and at one specific point of time we have to take that u-turn. So how did you get to that decision like what guided you to take that decision? I'm someone who actually started with the speed breaker I should say. After my masters I wanted to join a civil service academy and pursue civil services. I came in here I inquired about fees and how I should go about doing it then I got to know that it is very costly I must say and not just fees but also getting accommodation paying for that. My parents were ready to pay but I had a terrible sense of self-esteem so I just wanted to do things myself. So I took a small break I started teaching over there and then once I came back to this preparation the biggest hurdle that I faced was I was a teacher now I should be a student and listening patiently to classes taking notes has become a very difficult task for me and then I prepared and then came again another major hurdle that was COVID. Like I had online classes I'm talking about I had COVID and it was very difficult for me especially during that COVID days to sit up and attend classes but fortunately the exam got postponed so that was again my accelerator over there. I thought that okay I have got some months in my hand so I'll give a very good try this time and I tried and I actually expected myself to clear my first problems but that was the biggest setback I had in this preparation journey I should say I couldn't clear that problems and I must say that it was a very difficult time because I was I got JRF but I was sacrificing that for pursuing my passion so everybody was coercing me to go for a safer option that will be a PhD in a very reputed university but I could have secured them or to go for another job I did write many exams but again I couldn't clear it and I had to even come back home after my first problems so that was a kind of a red light for me and then again there was a sea of advices and I was lost in taking the right one because I was someone who had little what like peer group in the beginning but later it evolved actually but I was not sure whether I was doing the right thing and when to I talked to two people they'll be telling absolutely contradicting things and when I am watching YouTube videos I have seen toppers talking about some toppers will be talking about the importance of logic some toppers will be talking about gaining maximum information somebody will be talking about studying 16 hours a day and I was like okay I'm not in for this but later things turned out well for me in my second problems I could clear my second problems and then came means and then I saw one of the biggest red lights in my life that was my optional because my optional English literature it was not a very popular one and we hardly had any testers for the same and I myself was thinking like am I going myself into a gamble because it's like you have cleared problems but you don't you don't have a testers you don't have a mentor you don't have any answer keys and are you like putting all your hope over something that you are not sure of but I had no options but to go forward as Robert Frost said I chose the path that was less traveled but however it was my optional that paid me off and the moment when I got to know that I cleared means that was the what is the most unusual moment for me I will place it even over my current results because I was someone who didn't expect me to clear means but however I could clear that and then it was like okay now I'm going in front of UPSC I'm going to talk to people I'm going to talk to many people which is something that I loved and also I'm going to talk in front of UPSC which is something that we have usually seen only in movies like for a person like me I have seen that only in movies so that was like a cinema moment for me. Cinema moment like there is one interesting I will I will catch that so what was that specific moment okay and someone who watches a lot of movies but I don't know anything about technically or I'm not a critic either but cinemas or series I should say something that sustains me a lot so when I was just in front of my interview board like we will be asked to wait in front of that board for some time like we should ease our tension somehow so I just did a small swing movement in front of that was not filmy but that was something that happened like I didn't dance outrightly but I had a small I did a few steps and then when I went in surprisingly I haven't mentioned movies anywhere in my daff but I talked a lot about movies in fact I consider myself who talked a lot over there and I talked about uh Pariyar Mirmal I talked try talking about Darjeeling Limited but I mentioned some other name over there so that was very filmy for me and even my moment of success when the results came out in Mararalam there is actually a dialogue where a person who is winning a lot is at Dichamone at Dichamone moment was there yes yes you talked about moments so can you please revisit your moments the moment you felt happy you felt excited and you felt sad so those moments okay first of all talking about the moment of happiness this is something I haven't talked much I'm someone who had slight signs of clinical depression when I was preparing especially during my maids so after writing my maids when I talked with my psychologist she told me that you have evolved a lot okay I have seen you in a very bad position and I could with slight mild depression I could write my maids and the success came later but I could write it I could muster up all my courage and might to write it and after doing that she told me that you have grown a lot and that was a moment of happiness because it's like I have pushed myself up my moment of excitement came actually in one of the most unlikely places that was during my interview in front of my interview board because I was someone who's not very happy before going into like that inside that building but once when I got in when I signed that those papers I actually saw that like I am there in front of UPS like I am inside that circular building and I'm going to phase a board and when I went in like when Satyavati ma'am she was my panel member she asked wish me out Arya I said I was like yes ma'am with all my mother this I will not advise that but that was a moment of excitement excitement for me then talking about the most frustrating moment this is something that might be faced by many girls of my age when I go for each and every marriage they'll ask me about when am I going to get married and for somebody who was honestly preparing for you to see though they didn't know this but to expect that a girl of 26 should get married otherwise she'll be run out of demand in the mark marriage market for something that frustrated me when talking about the moment of being helpless I should say that again it happened during my maids I had some maids exam which was part conducted by other institutions like SSA and all emits my maids exams and I also tried sidelined all those exams and I went in for UPSA but when my first full test results came I scored very low I thought I have done myself well but I scored very low I was not certain about my optional also then that was like a moment of helplessness because it was just one week before the exams and I couldn't do much then but again later it turned out that that evaluator that person just stuck on to a key and then evaluated me but however that moment was like very helpful because my three months of hard work and me sacrificing a lot of other jobs for this preparation going wrong and I felt very helpless then I literally there was a veranda where I in that reading room that I used and I just went in there and cried but looking back I think those cries were answered or those prayers were answered then coming to a moment of being blank I should say after seeing 2023 question paper like on one hand I felt very relieved that I'm out of the loop but on the other hand I was like what will I tell to my fellow aspirants because I had seen the question paper and it was a completely new pattern like we had state they asked statement questions they asked about a lot of animals the squirrel that I could see the elephant that I could see assumed a lot of importance in my life or it would it will assign a lot of importance in my hello aspirants life so I felt bland with the sense of relief but also with the sense of concern I must say but I think aspirants are stronger enough to come out of all those uncertainties definitely they they are becoming stronger that's a different case so we all know the exam is getting tougher and tougher and there is this nature of unpredictability for the UPSC so even considering that fact the aspirants they are having this concern like the exam is getting tougher and tougher year by year so how to tackle those things like this last this year is in 2023 prelims is one of the toughest exam connected by the UPSC so what's your take on this for the aspirants I'd like to consider prelims as one of the biggest tests for testing the grit of an administrator maybe or as we'll serve it maybe because once we are into the service too as the surprises that's provided by UPSC we'll have we'll be having a lot of surprises from the system and from society but I think what that is important is yes we will be we'll be having a moment of shock and we'll be shaken for some time but to reinvent ourselves within a short span of time that's very crucial for a civil servant so with this prelims especially with GS1 what I found was that yes there was a very big pattern change but we could apply the logic that we usually apply for eliminating options in order to ascertain whether a statement will be right or not and then it will take some time it is not easy but that is the only way that we can come out of it so with such kind of surprises I think we should do the best that we can do with it and especially another paper that is getting tougher year by year is CSAT paper it was meant to be qualifying but it is eliminating these days so with that paper I think again it is a test of time management and also decision-making of an administrator because time management in the sense that we should pick up those questions that we will be capable of doing within that two hours so that we can qualify and decision-making I'm not talking about comprehension but I'm talking about selecting that some questions that you will be able to do and avoiding some questions understanding that it is tough and you will take up your type I think that paper is crucial in that manner and again there is no substitute for practice in UPSC so practice as much and again be ready for surprises then fight it out till the end of the last moment are you your interview score was 193 so that's a true score so what was your moment of conflicts I had this huge debate about whether personality test is an interview where questions will be asked we should just answer or is it really a test of personality going around in my mind that's when I attended a panel mock in Shankara IS and I could also have got the opportunity to meet a few toppers like Meera Ma'am and another topper from 2020 so that was the moment like I was not very prepared then I just had what I am my usual talking stuff with me and a little bit of preparation on my back but during my first panel mock it actually went very well and Raja sir he constantly told me that just be yourself you'll be able to do it and that sheer confidence that sir vested on me and like he used to repeatedly tell me and even Lena Ma'am used to convey that to me that I just I should just be myself and it was that conference that will carry me to the list or any other place I could and that was my moment of confidence are you your option was English so English literature not everyone takes that option so all over India there were very few aspects who take English as an option subject and you scored a very huge mark as we said you scored 299 marks in English option so how did you do that now what was your strategy on that I was a postgraduate in English literature so I had my postgraduate subject among the optional optional sister out by UPS so that was my first obvious reason to choose English literature more than that I knew that there were so many uncertainties associated with it but when I just went through previous year questions and also the syllabus I got to know two things one most of the texts that was mentioned over there were part of my either UG or PG syllabus so these were those were basic texts that will be familiar to each and every literature student and two when I just went through the previous year questions I put zero in on four or five themes that's there for each and every text so considering that I have done my masters that job was actually easy for a master student because I just want to study four or five topics from that and most of the patients in that optional came from the syllabus so that gave me the confidence because choosing other optionals for me was like building a house from the scratch but for me English literature it already there was a foundation and a small hut was there I just want to build on that so I chose to build my house in English literature are you how your options of the English literature how it helped in your GS book reference I'm not saying that the proficiency of an English literature optional student is required for GS however it helped me in many ways for instance when it comes to essay I usually used to start with a code or a form like for instance when it comes to this year's essay I started with a code by Savitri Bhai Bhule and I think that helped me a lot and even when it comes to GS answers rather than writing something like it reduced it eliminated I used synonyms and that helped to create a kind of lively feeling like I am writing the same thing but it will sound like I am writing different things and again when it comes to interview my language helped a lot again I will not say that it is very necessary to speak very fluent English when it comes to interview but again applying with words will help us to catch the attention of the board at the next page yes and it will help us to be confident there are a million aspirants who apply the civil service examination every year and among these million people only a selected thousand gets selected I'm not getting the exact facts but still approximately a thousand people will be getting a from these 10 lakh aspirants so there is a huge majority who get ousted from the civil services so what's your take like what can you say to those people like people who are not getting into the services when it comes to UPSC the numbers are really huge but I had a friend of mine who used to tell me that don't think of permutations and combination when it comes to UPSC just do your job and my fellow aspirants who may be finding themselves in a very difficult situation right now I would just like to say that don't give up on yourself like sometimes the whole universe may be conspiring for you sometimes nobody will be rooting in for you but as you are following your passion and if you are putting in your effort be confident about the effort that you are putting in and even if nobody is there to push you or nobody is there as a beam of hope for you just be your own light and just don't give up are you satisfied initially when I saw the results I had a great sense of satisfaction because I got everything that I asked for but then I saw a lot of people coming with me with a lot of hope it's not the hope that they have placed on me but it's also the hope that they have in this institution and in this system and that I think is a very huge responsibility and I think I'll have miles to go before I sleep and then only I'll get that sense of satisfaction you're going to make the future but still I wish you a great future ahead from me as well as from Shankar Ayesha Academy the whole Shankar family thank you thank you thank you