 success stories with Shankar. Today we have with us Dr. Arun as Naya, who has secured all India Rank of 55 in this year's UPSC civil service examination and we are happy that he's a student of Shankar Aayas Academy also. So first Arun, hearty congratulations. How are you feeling after this? Thank you sir. Thank you very much boy. I'm liking a dream right now because a long journey of civil service preparation came to an end with success. What else we can dream especially the civil service aspirants know how it will feel and again happy to be back in the Shankar's family and glad to see you sir because for the entire preparation Shankar was like in a family so it was pretty happy. I know that you are still in the quarantine phase. You just came back from Delhi after your interview so you are kind of a COVID interview with UPSC. So how was the experience of an interview amidst this pandemic at UPSC? How was the preparation of UPSC? Can you just tell us the explanation? Yes actually there is five more days left to complete my 14-day quarantine so still I'm in room quarantine here in Trivandrum. About the experience especially in the corona period it was UPSC preparation itself is a kind of uncertainty and corona adds more into it especially the pressure also because majority of the candidates done with their interview before the corona period itself and some of us I don't know fortunate or unfortunate postponed the interview and I had my interview on 27th of July and it's last month and so it is pretty hard time to go to Delhi alone in addition to the interview stress there is a fear of corona and first time I'm traveling in a flight alone so so many complications were there but the interview was very cordial the experience in Delhi was also very cordial. I think it was a pleasant experience in Delhi and of course return back with success. So now let's talk about your preparation journey. You are a doctor and from there you are now you know you're now becoming an IS officer so what made you change this career path after MBS? Yes sir in school days actually the civil service was not my dream it's not my priority actually to become a doctor was my wish so after MBS only especially during my house pregnancy period I understood that the career of a doctor is some kind of a monotonous there is less number of diversity in opportunities and challenges to do or showcase our caliber so I started thinking about another career of course civil service is the best in the country for getting a diversity platform to engage with multiple crowned years of people to do and showcase our caliber and efficiency so I started thinking why not I can start to prepare for civil service so that was a change. So you decided to prepare for civil service during your house pregnancy so was it a tough decision to kind of leave back MBS and move to the service or you move on you to move away to civil service patients? Yes it's kind of a tough decision especially for personally as well and for the family and friends as well personally and because I started my PG knee tenderness examination preparation during my house pregnancy initial period then ultimately I shifted my focus into civil services so it's like a dilemma was there and it was a little bit difficult to convince my parents friends and teachers why I need to shift my career from being a doctor to civil servant because most of the time a doctor is also a good profession in our society having esteem respect and economically stable profession so it was a little bit difficult but once I convinced my parents it was a small part everyone encouraged me so let's give it a try so that we won't feel any guilty in the future that why shouldn't I try for civil services? All is well that ends well so anyway this was not a you know this was indeed a correct decision Success is not new for you you know you have already cleared the Kerala state medical entrance exam with full rank in 2007 so it sounds like an academic record important in your case yes sir academically I was strong in schools itself I passed with I did my schoolings in public education sector and from government schools so I passed SSLC with full A plus and in plus two I had third rank in state and in state medical entrance examination I had fourth rank so in colleges also I was pretty good in academics I passed out with gold medals for four subjects but during my preparation for civil service I understood that if we had a good academic background of course it will give a confidence for us of course it will give a confidence for the examinations but I don't think UPSC is looking for our past backgrounds in anyhow what is we are right now is UPSC looking for and our past is past what is present that is the demand of UPSC okay okay so tell us something about your family I don't know how supportive they are made during this situation let us let us know what your family looks for yes sir my family includes father mother and a younger sister my father is an ex-service man I'm proud to be the son of an army man and mother is homemaker and sister is younger sister she's doing BSA agriculture in Bangalore so it is like UPSC is a long journey and candidate need to be in a motivated state because the emotional stability will go up and down every time so it is pretty important to have some support at least an emotional support from family and friends I think I was lucky to get such a family for that support great great so tell us something about your preparation strategies like how many hours did you study per day and there are maybe bits or two realities like people study 14-15 hours per day they have to spend you know you have to switch off everything else only for some studies so have you done all this or all this yes sir I started my preparation in 2018 sir the initial months of 2018 so it's almost one and a half years preparation to attempt the 2019 prelims I tried in 2018 plumes as well in between the preparation but I couldn't succeed so it is like I went through the plumes comes mains preparation kind of strategy I combined together both because most of the topics will overlap and so it is easier to go along so in the initial period I started with newspaper plus ncrt and standard books this was the park and then answer writing both plumes as well as mains tried more tests and then I think for the rest part of your question whether we need to cut away from the rest of the world I think there is no need there are candidates who say they deleted fbid's twitter id's etc but I'm not a kind of that fool so I had my active at facebook id's and whatsapp and all the time I was active in there so it's like if we decided to do something then nothing can stop us and about the timing of the study also I did not study for 10 or 14 or 15 hours a day but I always believe that better than hard work smart work is essential for upsa preparation so it is not important how many hours you spend before the book but the quality of time that we spend before the book is important so it is better to spend four hours before the book in a quality way efficiently rather than spending 24 hours before it's all about quality smart work so optional is medical science right so there will be a lot of doctors who would want to pursue the and they would be thinking of medical science as an option so what is your advice to aspirants to want to take medical science? yes I took medical sciences optional because I was confident in my graduation subject because I did well in my college days so I don't want to think about another optional subject and study a new subject entirely because when I went through the UPSC syllabus I shortlisted psychology and medical science for the optional but I went through the syllabus of medical science it was like every topic we covered in the college so it was like a revision only so I think I can spend less time on optional and spend more time on GS paper so the time management will be better for those who want to take medical science I would say medical science is there is no optional which is perfect or there is no optional such as there is a good scoring or bad scoring there is nothing like that UPSC is a fair body they do well for that so every optional subject has its own advantages and disadvantages so a candidate who is trying to get an optional subject I think three things they need to keep in mind one thing is their graduation subject the second thing is they're interested in that particular subject an optional subject should not be a burden for them and third thing is the availability of coaching material and guidance for that optional subject so depending on these three important points I think they can shortlist three or four optional subjects and after going through the syllabus and some advices of seniors I think they can pick one for the preparation. So now let's discuss your interview experience once again like if there are some specifics about your interview which board did you get in the UPSC interview and you know other questions did they ask is there any any interesting question related to state or profession did they ask anything like that so can you share something about your interview experience? Yes sir this is actually my first interview with regards to UPSC so it was a full of experience actually from just starting from entering into the gate of UPSC for when and till I get out of that building complex it was full of experiences and as I said before sir my interview was after the COVID period so we faced the interview board with face shield, mask and gloves so it was a little bit discomfort for us because we did our mock interviews in a routine basis and this was an unexpected thing and also communication especially through the nonverbal communication will be quite difficult they are using a face shield and mask so we had confusion whether it creates any disadvantages for us like because our voice is only more to connect with the interview board so that was a little bit confusion and I think interview was cordial interview board was very cordial I go David sir who is actually the former UPSC chairman retired in 2018 so it was a special board he came back and but he was very cordial and I think the entire candidate who had interviewed in the last phase were under stress for corona so the interview board did not put much pressure the entire questions most of the questions were expected and a couple of questions that did not expect one thing is they asked whether my parents had any complaints about me so that was the first question so it was kind of an expectation then another question was when can we expect another pandemic like corona so these two questions were unexpected otherwise it was a pretty good experience so we are happy chanker family is happy that we could also be a part of the journey and i don't uh as i attended the mock interview at chanker as a cabinet will see a small giving sturmers mock interview and then we will come to this session okay without visa indian pilgrimage can get access to a temple for their religious purposes sir in my collection I have 14 species and 23 plants are there mainly many in trees then indigenously like tamarind tree macotree I tried coconut and one exotic species yes but it is endemic to the Madakaskar island and also the eastern coastal area so how many years what is the oldest plant it is around 13 years yes how do that 14 plants you are telling how many are banyan I think six plants are there six six and baobao baobao only one how baobao is doing generally I started taking care of baobao for the last six months but it's because it's a very huge tree yes sir so how you took that and if you go for the species like banyan and all yes they are the species which here buttresing buttresing yes so buttres trees are easy to bonsai yes baobao is a little difficult yes so six months only here anyway yes we show all the best for that thank you so cannot how important is see coaching for the preparation of this and we would like to know your experience with changra I think coaching is the first thing is coaching is not the ultimate thing for getting into civil service examination it is like a 50-50 player would say 50 percentage of dedication and hard work or smart work should come from ourselves itself because coaching centers can't do like a spoon feeding kind of thing to the candidate but since most of the candidates who are preparing for civil service don't have the basic understanding what it is what is the demand of this examination what we need to do and how we can correct ourselves our mistakes I think for that part coaching institutes are playing an important role in the in the preparation of UPSC I think for me also I don't have a particular mentor before I joined changra is academy so I got all this kind of guidance that's what I need to read how can I correct my mistakes what can I do to improve myself how can I efficiently manage the time and also in a personal experience I would say when I had some demotivating experience in between these the teachers in changra is academy especially Lena madame Shankar Saransak yes sir from Chennai they helped me immensely even though it is through phone they helped me immensely to again motivated and to keep me in the track so in that sense coaching institution so coaching is a good thing for the candidate so really happy to be part of your journey now let's do a real civil service and let us discuss something like what all are your hobbies and do get really get time to talk to your hobbies when you're preparing for civil service is it all Chennai you know what what was your main hobbies actually I will start with the one which I submitted to the UPSC one was bonsai making and another was playing thumb piano so I think for both of this less time will consume during the preparation but at the same time it will keep me to relax and also to understand the value of patience especially the bonsai making so it did not consume much time which did not carve out much time from the preparation but along with that I listened to music I watched movies in between because these things are necessary I always say UPSC preparation is a marathon run and not a hundred meter spring so we need to go in a steady way and we need to keep our energy and we need to share some part of the time for our personal life also for hobbies with parents with friends and family so all these things will keep us energetic and so that that will enable us to move forward steadily so that's important so as I know that the services are not located but I guess your first preference is IAS as a potential IAS officer what all would you like to do for the nation have you thought about that? Yes sir IAS is the first preference I think I will get it too and as an IAS officer first thing is there are some duties that is interested upon the IAS officer in every department or every posting so first thing is complete that particular duty itself rather than going for an adventures and second thing is we need to understand the demand of the people at that time because if currently IAS officer like it is a corona pandemic time so the demand will be different and if after two years the demand will be something else so depending upon the demand overall after finally this is a service even though it is a public service so the service always need to focus upon the demand depending upon the demand of the people I can work properly and of course the government of India or the state government will interest me some particular object views or mission sources so I could do also that and especially since I have a medical background if it is in the health sector or something related to that I have an age or other candidate but yes I am ready to work in any field also so yes it is a challenge so I wish to face those challenges. We are also sure that you will do the best and do you must you know I think your most of your friends would be out there in the field you know serving the nation but during this pandemic so do you miss being out there as a doctor you know helping the people helping the nation do you miss that yes certainly I miss that because most of my friends they're doing either post-graduation or working in some some hospitals so in the corona time they were working hard so I think I feel guilty sometimes that I couldn't work properly with them because we can understand that during the preparation there's some kind of difficulties are there to work properly as a doctor but I registered in the government site as a voluntary worker but fortunately or unfortunately that call didn't come yet but of course if there is any chance to work as a doctor I will do that but now after the completion of this process I think more of an administrative level kind of work will be interested for me but always I will keep the spirit of doctor. So doctor with my IAS you can contribute much more to the society so my final question for you all for future aspirants who still want to write an exam or people who are preparing now for this exam what would be some advice or message you would like to give and can you give some advice from my personal experiences I don't know whether it can generalize or not so the first thing is dream about it in the last two years there was no single day in my life in which I didn't dream about this particular day that result came and my name is in that pdf so dream about it second thing is dedication dedicated work a third thing is smart work do the smart work rather than hard work so that is a third third thing and fourth thing is it is like UPSC preparation should be part of our life our life should not be dedicated for UPSC preparation overall we have a entire world outside waiting so be the UPSC preparation part of our life and fifth one is actually for those students who feel some kind of inferiority complex because I'm from a state board I'm from a Malayalam medium actually till 12th standard I was in a Malayalam medium school no from a village in Kerala so in that sense at least some group of students may have doubt that whether these kind of background will create in struggles in their successes so I could say they will not and you can succeed very well even if you are from such kind of a background so these are the things I can give to these budding aspirants so that is totally inspirational I don't think from a Malayalam medium you have come all the way and you know you've got one of the top primes in the examination so hearty congratulations once again and you know we love the nation of your ability and we are inspiring IS officer for the whole thing so thank you very much thank you for joining us in this program thank you and all the best thank you sir thank you very much thank you for being part of this entire family again thank you