 Congratulations, Nitin. Thank you, sir. For securing all India 32 rank in civil service examination 2022. It is a great achievement and as you could not qualify in pre in the first attempt and then second time in mains and finally in the third attempt all the three stages with such brilliant ranks. So naturally it is high appreciation for you. So how are you feeling now? Sir, the very first feeling is of relief that at last I am out of the cycle and after that we are very grateful that I could achieve this rank and whatever hard work that I had put in it paid off in the end so there is grateful towards that. Say you the answer which you gave feeling relieved it was a very expected answer from you. I would like you to comment on this word relief given a candidate succeeds. So how and what kind of relief is this? Sir, when we are in the cycle when we are in the preparatory mode there is an uncertainty about our future whether we will reach there or not. I would say that one is always confident and convicted to his ambition or objective whatever it is but still we cannot ignore the uncertainty that this exam has. And despite of being very talented and all still you can never be sure. So once you get into the list you are relieved that at least we have made up to this point and this is where we start. See although every second day or next time which comes in our own life is full of mystery what is going to happen there and that is the beauty of nature also this life that we keep following that mystery and to unfold that in life. But when it comes to civil service examination right there is one very very common question in the mind of most of the parents how to remain motivated for such a long time because it is a long journey of three consecutive years of your attempts right. So to help the future parents I would like you to answer the question from an experience how you remain motivated and how you kept unfolding this mystery which came in your life. In fact I had one quote which I made myself and I wrote it down. It was that motivation doesn't lead to action it is the other way around to stay motivated in fact you have to work and whenever you achieve small targets daily targets it fills you with enough confidence that yes I am on right path and I am in right direction and that further motivates you to work even more. Apart from that it should be very intrinsic motivation and whatever reasons I have to appear in this exam should be very clear to me and in fact I had been very philosophical throughout my life till now so I had made it a point that whenever I do certain action or certain objective that I need to fulfill I must be very clear philosophically on that why do I need to do that and what is it that I will gain from that. So such questions must be clear. You have used two very beautiful concepts you know one you said that there is a journey the direction which you take and keep evaluating where you are going is important. So it is beautifully said that right direction taken is more important than the destination reached. Yes. Because if you have taken the right direction then you are sure to reach the destination maybe today or tomorrow but you will be there right. The second thing which you said is that intrinsic motivation candle lighted from the outside will not continue for long but there is a candle within definitely it is going to last for long right. So you are talking about the real motivation inspiration and the third important thing you added there why you are taking this pain why you are taking the if you do are not clear about your reasons of why you are taking the efforts and the pain is stopped somewhere anywhere. It will be very interesting for the audience to know about your background what is your family background and educational backgrounds please say something about that. We have a family of four the immediate family of four I have an elder sibling she is my elder sister then my father and my mother mother is homemaker and father is a teacher and it has been a middle class background and we had seen economic hardships as well at some point of time and that I feel every Indian middle class must have felt and apart from that my grandfather he was a farmer and he was not very big farmer in fact I had seen my parents the kind of hardships that they had faced though it motivates us further and that is one of the key pillars of motivation that keeps you pushing that you have come from somewhere and you need to go somewhere and that is the kind of background that I had. Say Dithin it is a very interesting concept and motivation you are talking about most of the people who come in the unprivileged family you know and middle class they take it at disadvantage since I do not have background yes we are facing economic problem with the family my grandfather was a farmer my father is just a teacher you know this is looking how do you look in life what you are talking is these all things became driving force for you right so the people who have similar background like you what message you would like to give to them why they should not keep it at disadvantage but they should take their this kind of background for advantage please say something about that. In fact sir it brings value to that background as well and it validates that background is sufficient and that important enough to generate success and which is validated when you reach a certain whatever success one might aspire for and any hardship you face it is a challenge that we must take and any hardship makes a man a better person after it passes yes in that way this is always motivational for a person that it does not matter from where I come but it is what that wherever I will reach it is that I decide. That is very very powerful thing again once you are saying concept is that you know this is such an exam and the service that you get after this in the smallest possible time this is the fastest journey you can get in your life to reach from very humble background and like a student to immediately to become someone special in the society like civil servant immediately the whole life transforms how it you are going there. So any amount of effort if you are taking sincerely it is not a waste yes in the whole process what you become is more important than what you achieve. So now it is a complete transformation you are talking and the kind of immediate achievement you have got definitely it is a big achievement. In fact sir it is one of the things that Napoleon used to say and we have studied world history so we are very inspired of the statements that he had made that whenever a person faces any problem or a challenge after that challenge passes away that person is a better and improved to better evolved person. In that way any challenge must be taken head on and this exam tells us that we need to work consistently towards ourselves. In fact if you have no challenge in life you will not grow you will stagnate. So you should be always able to take challenges and face the struggle a kind of opportunity in the adversity that should be the spirit of facing everything there. Talking a bit about your educational background as I am aware about you with your discussion you are a engineer from IIT Roper and you also are from the computer in the computer science engineering which also has a big market today and big opportunity to get in terms of money in terms of life. So just living that how this idea of coming into IS came in your mind. Sir the idea was already there even before joining or even thinking for IIT I had decided that I will be joining civil services as a living. This is something that I should do and as a person who contributes to the society. So IIT in fact was a way to get to there. It was a graduation option for me and the love for sciences and kind of exposure that one gets there. So it has been very contributing towards personality development towards awareness about technology. So it has helped a lot and the idea was already there. It means that selection of career choice was already there for me very early days and what all you wanted that you wanted to be technically graduate means some qualification which is needed for preparing an examination and you had love for science reading and other thing that is where wonderful clarity there. Now if you look back when the idea came first to go in civil services what will you say. I think sir in 7th or 8th standard I had come to know that there are IS and. It is very interesting that so early you came to know. Yes sir but clarity was not that much there but still it was a blurred picture that it is a very good job opportunity and a very good employment. But the bigger philosophical clarity that I gained during college. At that time I had complete conviction that this is going to be the career option for me. The idea it is old saying well begin is half done. So when I ask you to comment on this how does it apply on you. Sir it is very well said and it is very true and the very part of any action is the conviction that you carry in the beginning for its completion and that is all about how we begin. How sincere we are in the beginning and the initial foundation steps. So I must say that it is very true. How does it apply to you. Sir I had cleared this exam in my third attempt and I know that the most of learning and the most of the study that I had to do it was in the first year only. I had done with utmost sincerity in that year and I had put a lot of effort in the first year. So I know that it was the first year which is the foundation of all the. Even though you missed in the first year but because of this sincere preparation you were confident that I will get it. In fact sir first year also I missed prelims by 3 marks and that was due to lack of practice. I did not practice much on mock test so that was the learning that I took for the next year but a lot of syllabus and knowledge was being gathered in the first year only. But when it came to the second attempt you reached up to the main. Was there any kind of short term or long term demotivation that came to you that I came to this stage and again I have. In fact sir I did not clear main since second and the main reason was that too much focus on prelims after I had failed in the first year. So I was very much focused on prelims and a lot of effort was being put towards mock test and learning facts and figures. But main is very different from prelims and it requires different orientation and that was something which I missed in my second year and I do realize and in fact that was again the learning from the second year and I implied that part in the third year. Now if I ask you to comment on the whole correction from first second to third attempt so what did you correct in the second attempt and what did you correct in the third attempt? Sir in second attempt I attempted more mock test for prelims and I was much focused on attempting the paper in the examination hall. So prelims is not just learning and knowing things you must be able to perform on the day of the exam and that is what you learn by giving mock test and that too as per the all rules and timings and you also fill the OMR sheets. This also needs practice. Sometimes to undo the mistake of not filling it properly also. And in the second attempt I realized that one must focus on answer writing and addressing the demand of the question. It is not what you know that they want to know and they want to know what is being asked and you must address that and that is something which I learnt and applied in the third year. Okay, so that you kept correcting you know failures or pillars of success you applied it very nicely. One thing I would say is once a preparation in this journey you must be very dynamic and we must be very focused on what is not working and what should work and change it very like immediately as soon as it fails. As there are three stages of the examination and pre has become really challenging especially this year it has been lot of discussions and debate going on there is a drastic change in the primaries orientation when the exam is over a pre discussion comes that is train has changed again it has happened. So it is my experience of nearly 30 years while running China Cass Academy I find that it is not a new kind of thing, still you have to say anything about this particular pattern of this year. Sir what they have done is they have kind of options they are giving they are trying to limit the elimination method that candidates have been using. In fact it is head soft to UPSC they have always been ahead of coaching industry and yes all mock test whatever predictions that people make they have been able to defy those predictions and this year also they have done that. And last year also was the first year when they introduced such kind of options in which elimination techniques could not be used much or then also it was said that it is very difficult this year. So I think this is a trend that we can expect the next year as well. This is what I said in the beginning I am saying it for more than 30 years the same kind of discussion comes every year that there is a change in the train. So in this situation with your experience as you have appeared 3 times in the pre, what you would like to suggest to the students what kind of mindset they should have for appearing in this exam. Sir prelims is lot about breadth of knowledge that one knows and they have been very extensive in fields that they cover like in S&T they are covering black holes and the latest developments in space telescopes. So one must be aware of that and the approach for that is we should be very strong in static portion but we should be aware about current in a holistic manner like if I know that India is evolving very much in space industry then I should know that at what level world is working. So such kind of analytical view point towards world they are expecting in prelims as well. I would say extensive reading but staying within the bounds of syllabus and revising your static portion. Especially this year there has been also questions coming from the main syllabus like yes they touched international relations they have taken international security. Even in polity also they are going in depth and asking certain intricacies of like the president selection also. So there was one question on that so it shows that they are demanding now depth in that wide. So in a way there should be integrated approach both analytical and also factual as combined for both pre and means that should be always there and the students cannot go with superficial study and I would also like to advise that don't depend on just notes read through the original sources. In fact sir I would say notes are always a secondary material yes it is not notes in themselves it is the process of notes making yes that will help you better yeah that what makes them useful and one must make his or her own notes and then they are very useful for revision going directly for notes is not going to help. This is something very important to understand for the future parents that note making is an art yes and that should come at your own. You innovate your technique how you are going to read study and then note down the points which you can recall later on revise in very less possible time that is very very important. But if you are reading through the notes compiled by somebody else then you are not giving enough exercise to your mind and that is very inorganic way of learning. And that you will not be able to really digest it rather you can grab it but that will not become yours so make your own notes that is something. Note making is an art I said so I would like to listen from you especially and on behalf of the students how to make notes sir I have done extensively for history being an engineer we do not have much idea of history but when we are introduced to the syllabus we find it very tough and large lengthy to learn but the main technique that I used was I went with the standard book and I read Bipin Chandra for modern and old NCR is for ancient and medieval for that I followed the pattern of the chapters the kind of the way in which they had written they are the historians and they must have placed it in a logical sequence so I have relied on that and following that chronology then add small snippets and small notes into that chronology it helps in understanding those notes and it brings a chronological sequence of history in our mind in fact I had not read much factual study beyond these books but I was able to solve many questions just on the basis of chronology so notes can be based on that logical sequence and we can use that very much and apart from that mind map is one thing that is very useful in note making we can construct certain diagrams and make parts as its sub dimensions so it helps in remembering them when whenever we feel like revision you should always be preparing something which you can quickly revise yes and revision is hallmark to the success right that is very important now talking about the main examination if I ask you to define broadly for the students how to attempt and how to really prepare for the main examination what would you like to say Sir for means one must have very good base in static and one must be aware of the current developments it requires one or one and half year of newspaper reading prior to the main exam one must have done that thoroughly after that when we sit for means we must address the demand of the question right and we must address each sub part of the question and it is very crucial and in fact if we write answers which are not linked to the question they are not logical answers and it might irritate the examiner as well it shows that we are trying to answer just for the sake of writing or filling the page this can be learnt during answer writing practices before means and this is the best investment one can do for means we cannot go for more and more reading or more and more learning we must consolidate our current knowledge and able to project that knowledge in a structured manner in means that is what I feel is most important talking about civil services personality test interview right what do you think are the traits needed to do well in this kind of test Sir for interview I felt was a person who is genuine and who is confident in being genuine and this is the most important thing that they are looking for and one must be able to accept any shortcomings whatever they are and there must be a willingness to improve on to them and it must show in one's character and one's way of talking and they really appreciate genuineness in interviews and apart from that what I felt was a diverse personality which is pleasant to communicate with they do appreciate that since you have got very good marks in the interview civil services final interview 195 so naturally your tips will play very important role for others to do would you like to share a bit of your start and also some special moments in the interview with the UPSC in fact Sir I would say it was a life-changing experience for me one thing I would say Sir the positivity in mind is something which we can train and it doesn't necessarily depend on our surroundings or outside factors and it should not in fact and it was something I felt during my interview while we were waiting in the sitting hall waiting hall there is one poem by Rabindranath Tagore which is written over there and it is the poem that the wear the head is held high and the knowledge flows freely so that the entire point that Rabindranath Tagore has written I read that poem during that while I was sitting there so it filled me with positivity that we as civil servants will be working in that direction the kind of India that he had hoped to achieve and we are kind of representatives for that so this was the positive training that I had been giving myself on the day of the interview and that correlated what you read from the lines of Rabindranath Tagore and when I entered the interview hall so my boat was R. N. Chobe Sir and he was our chairman and he began with that the scientific background that I had and he went on to say that our constitution also has this duty that one must develop scientific temper so what do you actually understand by scientific temper in fact my pet thing and I had thought on this topic a lot that was very good start for me in the interview and I could reasonably satisfy him with my answer so which I think that went well for me so it all started very well there any any critical moment when you felt that you're stuck and you are not able to sir there was one moment one of the board members he asked me what is the speed of earth at that moment I was confused whether he's talking about the revolution speed or the rotating speed but that was the only moment apart from that it went very fine and even that I was able to justify that I got genuinely confused so it was more on the factual side also it was more on philosophical side especially chairman sir your questions were more on the philosophical yes but I'm talking about when the factual question came the problem it was on the you maintain your poise at this point of time right now see time management is a very big factor in this examination so I'd like you to share your timetable how you manage your time in the preparation so since I was into preparation full time and I was not doing any job at that moment so I was able to give a lot of time to the preparation but still one must manage one's time very wisely because we cannot study entire day and it ultimately reduces our efficiency we must find some time in the evening or early in the morning to take a walk or small run it helps and apart from that one must not indulge in non fruitful discussions yes which I think is very prevalent in our preparation among the people the civil says parents it has become common yes gossiping and talking something which is not productive in fact this was one thing which one of my teachers told me that it doesn't matter what I think or what other person thinks what matters is what is and what is already established by the institutions of the country so we must go by that and any other critical thinking we are free to explore that in our essay paper but not in other syllabus yes so we must avoid that is the place you say where you have yeah we have freedom for our own thoughts and own views now this is just to give you a few points like just to which you like to give like guidance see your five points to the future experience from your experience what do you like to suggest them the first guideline is one must be fully prepared in static portion of their syllabus and revise it as many times as possible then next I would say is read newspapers newspaper any good newspaper Hindu and Indian Express they are the most prominent ones and one newspaper is more than sufficient and give it a thorough read there is no need to make notes out of newspaper one can always have compilation of these notes as yearly or half-yearly compilations we have in market but a thorough reading is a must yeah then third I would say practice mock test and make sure that you are prepared on the day of the exam and then same goes for answer writing for means that would be fourth and fifth I would say is on the day of the exam for prelims as well as for the means be calm and composed and don't revise on that day just stay calm and be happy should have good sleep and then yes take rest there should be restful mind and this should and while you enter the examination all you should have confidence and faith in your preparation and go with that I'm sure your sharing of your experiences and your suggestions to the future is parents will be really really good for them and they will be able to relate with you those I specially come from a background like yours so thank you very much for coming with this program success speaks thank you God bless you thank you don't forget to like share and subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon to never miss an update