 Hello everyone, welcome to success stories with Shangri's Academy. Today we have with us Mr. Suraj Ben K. R who has successfully cleared this year's UPSC Indian Forest Service exam with an all India rank of 1. So Suraj, hearty congratulations personally and from Shangri's Academy family. Thank you. And I think it's almost after 10 years, I think the last time somebody got first rank it was Haridha ma'am in 2012. After 10 years, Kerala is getting number one rank in an UPSC exam. So we are extremely elated about your first rank. Thank you so much. So as I always ask everyone, how did you know the result and what was your first reaction seeing your name in that list as all in the rank one? Okay. Actually when the results came, I was in Trichy. I worked there in the Indian Ordinance Factor Service. So I was in my quarters alone. So when the results came, I was there. Nobody was with me. Okay. Like nobody expects to get a first rank. So I was hoping that I'll get a rank in the list. Okay. And I saw a message in the group saying that Suraj Ben A R won and I was talking with my friend at that point of time. So I told her you keep the phone, I'll just see and call you back. Okay. By the time I started getting calls. Okay. Then I went to UPSC site, downloaded and checked it myself to just to make sure. Okay. And I guess I was, first I was elated obviously. Okay. Then I think, then came the satisfaction and more importantly relief of the. You know, you successfully ended and that too with a bang we can say all in the rank one. Right. So let us, let us, you know, discuss about your background like what have you studied, where have you studied. And when did you feel that you're already in service, right? You're already in ordinance factory service. So you have already cleared UPSC once. This is for a service first, mains and first rank. Yes. So when did you feel like, okay, I want to take UPSC examinations? When did that thought came into your mind? I studied it. I said to Vandrum. Okay. Instead of science, education and research. So there I was doing research work during my spare time. Okay. At the same time, I was not feeling that level of satisfaction that I should have been feeling when I'm doing science. Okay. So I started working in a few NGOs in Trivandrum. Okay. So we, we are teaching in a few orphanages. There's this organization called Nation of Speech and Hearing. Then I was also, we organized this program called Trivand Run. So a few events were happening. So I found myself very happy doing these things. So I realized that a social work related area will be something I'll be happy to do. So that's what motivated me to civil services. But for forest services, I think my association goes way back. So in ISA, we are supposed to do projects every summer. Okay. So during my first summer in 2012, I guess, I went to Thaini Forest Division to do a project in ecology. So the project was in mammal systemation. And it is in currently the Meghamalai Tiger Reserve, that area. Okay. So I think the first civil service officer that I ever saw was a DFO of Thaini at that point of time. I think his name was Ganeshan, sir. Okay. And I got to see a lot of things that he was doing at that point of time. I remember there was a raid that happened. So for a youngster like me at that point of time, that was a big thing. And later on, I went to work in Kolathopada Forest Range again in ecology project. So there also I interacted with a lot of forest officers. So that gave me a lot of what do you call it, admiration and the respect for the service, the kind of work they have been doing. And then added to it, I think I was also a part of the Elephant Census 2012 without even knowing it. So people came and they asked us to join them. Later on, I realized that it was the Elephant Census 2012. As a part of the college itself? No, I was there doing a project. Okay. So the Elephant Census happened at that point of time. Okay. So we were asked to be a part of it. So I think all these experiences really made me interested in the service. But as you mentioned the first two attempts, I couldn't clear the cutoff for forest service problems. Okay. So this was the first time I could clear and I wrote it. Okay, okay. Now this is as you told, this is the third problems, right? Yes. Yeah. So this is this time you gave only forest service. You did not give options of civil service. The option was only forest service. No, for problems I gave both options. Okay. But mains I wrote only the forest service. Okay. And why only forest service? Like why didn't you, why did you skip civil service this year? Any thought behind that? It was both practical, mainly practical reasons. Okay. I was already in the service. There was no leave available. So I had to choose between one of these. Okay. So since I got forest service selection, I mean for the mains for the first time. Okay. I thought that this is worth trying. Okay. And I maximum, I have gotten maybe two months of leave. So I thought that this is a more practical decision and even for it. That's it. That's great. Now because you are already joining the service, you would have done your research of what an IF, you have already seen IFS officers working. And for many common people, they really don't know, they have seen IFS officers because they are more visible in the community. IFS officers mostly I think work in the forest areas. So they don't know what an IFS officer does and all. For a common man, can you tell what all are the duties, functions of an IFS officer once you get into service? Indian forest service is one of the three all India services. So the other two being IS and I guess. So what is meant by an all India service is that the central government recruits you and you get posted in one particular KEDA where you work throughout your career. State. State. And you work there throughout your career. So forest service main mandate is to implement the national forest policy. So currently the forest policy is from 1988 and we implement that. Under that we have, we do different kinds of work ranging from forest management, which includes the forestation, pre-forestation, all those works. Then there's wildlife management aspect, protection and all those things. Then there's a policing aspect to it, which is basically when hunting happens or when forest produce is being taken away without permission. So you have to take care of that as well. I think more importantly, there's a developmental aspect to it as well. Because some of the most vulnerable populations of India lives in the forest. So you have to take care of them. For example, their rehabilitation comes under you. So there are a lot of different varieties of work that you do. And I think higher levels, there is also the policy aspect where you'll plan the policies for the forest department. So I think it's a service and recently I think MOEFCC was MOEF, I mean instead of environmental forest. So the climate change aspect is also added to the service. So I think that gives a lot more dimension, especially considering the current situation. And I think that this is a service which in the next 30 years is going to have a lot more scope and the forest cover is also increasing. Correct. So in general I think this is a very interesting service looking into the future. As you told, especially as Carolites, we know the importance of conserving western guards. They're experiencing the repercussions of... Definitely. So a lot of scope for the service. I'm really excited about the opportunities that are going to come in the services later on. Now let's come to your preparation strategy specifically for forest. So the first stage is prylums. And the prylums is common for UPSC civil service and the forest service. And relatively, the forest service for it is the cutoff is higher. You have to score more marks in the prylums examination. So generally people find it difficult. These days people find it difficult to clear the cutoff for civil service also. So I think 10 to 15 more marks you have to score in the prylums to clear forest cutoff. So how did you prepare for this prylums so that you could clear the prylums with such higher cutoffs? As I mentioned in the first two attempts, I didn't clear the forest cutoff. I cleared civil's cutoff. But forest cutoffs always seem to be a distant dream for me. I never thought I'll clear it. But then I never changed my strategy for prylums as well. For prylums, I believe that you stick to the basics. So I don't refer to any extra things. I just read all the basic textbooks that I have been reading for all these years. I read one current affairs magazine. I read newspaper but I don't make notes from newspaper. So it depends on any one current affairs magazine, whichever I feel is good that year. And I think the difference that came in the last attempt where I cleared the forest cutoff is that I took more attempts. I took more risk. This may seem counterintuitive for a lot of people and I don't advise everybody to do this. But for me, from my side, I was cautious in some attempt. For example, in my second attempt in 2018, I wrote only 86 or 87 questions. And I cleared the cutoff by just 0.66 marks. 98 was the cutoff. I got 98.66. So then next time I realized that this won't work for me. And the next year, for example, this year, when I cleared the questions were very, I would say vague and mostly logical. So I thought that in such a paper, writing lessons will be a disaster because you won't be able to score well with your answers. So I wrote 99 questions. I only skipped one question because I didn't know any of the options. I think it was a national park-based question. All four national parks had no idea. So I thought I'll skip that except that I wrote all the others. So I took a lot of risk in that sense. And my concept of a problem is that you don't get out of the list because you have a lot of negatives. You get out of the list because you don't have enough right answers. So I'll explain this. The thing is that if you have 70 questions right, no matter if you write 100 questions and even if your 30 questions go wrong, you'll still get 120 marks and it will still be in the list anyways. So I tried to focus on that part. So when I attempt more questions and when there are a lot of skills involved, you have been preparing for a long time, you have developed a lot of elimination strategies on your own. So once you have those things, once you attempt more questions, there are more chances that you'll get more. So I think one thing that I do to make myself feel confident when I'm attempting more is that suppose I'm writing, I wrote around 83. I'll feel afraid to write more because I also feel like maybe I'll get negatives. So I'll count in terms of four questions. So when I take four questions, I know that even if I write four and only one gets right, I'll still get zero difference. So if you get right, you'll get two marks. Three goes wrong, two marks negative. So it's like zero. So it's a zero game. You have already scored this much, whatever comes next is okay. I know this can also backfire because all four can go wrong. But this gives me a lot of confidence to go ahead. So when I think about it, if I get two questions right and two questions wrong, I'm still scoring like I think more than 2.66 or something. So that's an addition to your marks. So I think in this way and this helps me feel more confident to attempt more. So that's how I wrote 99 questions and came out. That is something that really worked well for me. Otherwise I don't think I have any very special strategy for problems. I stick to the basics. I read everything. I try to revise it again and current affairs I'll follow. That's it. Because we're discussing about problems, see there are certain areas where students does not give much priority to like ancient media in India. Generally people tend to skip it, science and technology. Even environment questions, they do only a peripheral reading and they focus more on history. We can say history, modern India, geography, polarity and economics. So do you feel that it is very important to prepare this so-called peripheral area so that you can comfortably clear forest cut-offs? Yes. I think so, especially in terms of forest, I think that someone who is aiming for forest definitely should try to read the peripheral areas as well. Sticking to the basics is good because if you read polarity, if you read modern history, you'll get a few questions right. So that is very important to have the basics. But once you have the basics, I think that the next level is to read all these things. But then you should look at the time you have. So if you have less time and in UPSC if you read something for once, I don't think it's a reading at all. So if you're reading once, then actually for problems you're calling for a disaster because you'll read this once, you'll go to the exam, you'll see a question. Your brain will tell you, yes, I've seen this question. You'll mark the wrong answer because UPSC will definitely have a different option, very close to it. So unless you have time to revise the same thing, don't go for it. But you find a source which you can revise again and find very concise sources and maybe you can have your own notes as well. But go for all the areas like science and technology, environment. But one issue I've found these days is that people try to see the previous question paper and believe that UPSC will do the same question next time. For example, this time, for example, last time agriculture, a lot of questions came in. Nobody expected it to happen. This time I think there were a lot of modules in agriculture. People were reading agriculture left and right. There was no balance. But you have to read everything else. Agriculture is not something UPSC asks every year this well. Maybe UPSC asks, maybe it won't. So you shouldn't try to guess what UPSC is going to ask you. Rather than you try to cover every area UPSC has asked and then trust your skill set as well in terms of prelims preparation. Balancing all subject is very important. Definitely. Now let's come to mains. So mains is actually different from the UPSC mains pattern. Exam is different even though prelims is same. Exam is different and the papers are also different. You have to take one general studies paper and one English paper. So how different is the general studies paper in forest exam and UPSC exam? And what were your preparation strategies for forest service general studies? GS in forest is very different from the GS in civil services. It's called GK actually. General knowledge paper. And the questions I've seen that it's very direct. Analytical questions are lesser and direct questions are more. And I think there's a very high inclination towards the environment, science and technology, biotechnology and geography questions. So and in history also I think there are questions like for example in history in UPSC you will never get questions like explain the administrative policy of say Krishna Devaraya or say Cholan Empire. But here you'll get questions like that only. Pure history questions which you can get from standard books. So you need to read that. So I really worked on my history aspect because my history is not very strong. So that is one area. Then I think I really worked on biotechnology, science and technology and environment because these questions are very direct and very deep as well. So it will be very specific questions. For example, this year there was a question on MRI, magnetic resonance imaging. And unless you know specifically what MRI is, you won't be able to write a very good answer on it. There were questions on very specific biotechnology fields, et cetera. So you have to be prepared for that. And even geography as well, I think human geography is very important in here because at least one or two questions every year comes from human geography. Policy and economy questions are comparatively easier when compared to GS. So one mistake I've seen people do is that they think that GKS instead of study for civil services, you don't have to study. But I believe that you have to prepare for those areas which is not that really taken care of in terms of civil services. So there I really worked on my science and technology aspect. I read some very standard materials also. I made some notes on these specific technologies which are some of the highlights. You may or may not get it, but still you have to work on that. So I think that is the difference I made in my work and history part as well. History, you have to be very thorough with the history part. Not very deep analytics, but you should know the events. For example, in modern India, I've never seen a question like this in UPSE, sorry, civil services. In forest services, there was a question like between the events from 1990 to the independence or something. I don't remember the exact question. So that is something you can say only when you read in such a way. So see the question for the last 10 years in GES and understand what difference is there in forest. And I followed that pattern basically. So referring previous question papers will give you an idea about what questions they are asking and prepared accordingly. I actually what I did is that I took the last 10 years question paper. In GES it's very easy because they have divided it into 6 parts. So it's very easy to divide. But even in every other paper including my option is I try to divide it chapter wise and write my own notes because when I'm writing I read it also. Otherwise I'm just copy pasting it. So I had a book for this and I made sure that before I go to the exam I cover enough width and depth as the questions were asked. So this strategy can be worked in every paper in the forest. Perfect. Now let's come to the English paper. It should be a civil service. It is a qualifying paper. Whereas here I think it's a 300 mark paper where the marks are taken into the total marks. So how did you prepare for this English paper and was there any preparation strategies you followed for English? Again English is another paper that people generally ignore in terms of forest services. I decided not to ignore it basically because in tenth and twelfth I didn't score very well in my English. So I was a bit worried if I'll score very less. I worked a bit on it. I think there's around 50 marks of grammar in the 300 marks. That is an area you should really work on. Take any standard grammar book, see what questions are asked in a forest and then work on it. For example there's an idioms. You need to explain the idioms meaning. We are not people who really knows English idioms a lot. So I sat with my friend and we prepared like around 150 to 200 idioms. I know that's too much, but then we did it very fast. You don't have to learn everything. You know a few, but whatever you don't know you prepare there. And that really helped me. I didn't miss any idioms in this. So similarly you have to work on. And I think prissy and comprehension also. Here you have to understand that it's an English paper. So in prissy and comprehension, what people do as a mistake is that, even I used to do in my tenth and twelfth is that you take words from the paragraph and you write it over there. So in an English paper you are not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to take words from there. You should write on your own. So it was very difficult for me to come naturally. So I worked a lot on it. I wrote at least 10 prissy before I go. And comprehension I didn't do right. When I went there, I had a thought how to go for comprehension. I did it very casually. I did it in my own language. I didn't care if it was wrong. My language was not very good, but make sure that there is no grammatical mistake. Just ensure that you convey the idea. That is a thing. And essay papers, I think essay part is there. That is a bit more easier than the essay in UPSC. Civil services. The words, civil services, and the words limit is also lesser. So I think that's a good thing about essay paper. I think you can manage with your civil preparation. Now let's come to optionals. Again, unlike UPSC, you have to prepare two optionals for a service. My first question regarding optionals is how did you pick your, what were your optionals? And how did you pick your optionals? Because the subjects are not exactly as same as UPSC. So students find it difficult in picking optionals. So how did you pick your optionals? In my case, I didn't spend a lot of time in picking the optionals. I went for the quintessential common optionals, forestry and geology. But basically I went for it. I had a reason because this was, since it was picked by most students, I knew that there will be materials available, there will be classes available, and I had very limited time because I was already in the service. So I took that, these two options because of that reasons. Forestry, again, because you're going to forest service. So I think taking that option is very important when you're taking forest services. It gave me a lot of perspective into the forest service as well. Geology, again, because there was materials and this were available. I think that the strategy to pick your optionals should be, first, if you have a common subject as an option available over there, and if you're comfortable with it, you can choose it. In my case, I was not really comfortable with my graduation subject. So I had to go for other two optionals. So there I went for, all combinations are not allowed. So you have to pick based on what you're interested in and you have to understand the risk with each option. So every option has its positive and negative. Geology, for example, my optional, it's a very limited syllabus option. And there is no current affairs as such to learn in geology because geology is the study of Earth's history. So anything that happens recently is nothing for geology. So that's a good thing. But at the same time, in geology, you have to buy it a lot. For example, in mineralology, you have to buy it at a lot of things. And you are not somebody who has seen these crystals at hand. So you have to, imagining is also difficult. So by hearting takes a toll on your brain. And after a while, it gets difficult as well. So I think you have to find a balance between the optionals. Each option has this positive and negative. And you need to understand that. So my friend, she took agricultural engineering because forestry and agriculture is not available. She was from engineering background. So she went for forestry and agricultural engineering because she thought that works better for her. And it does work better for her than in my case. I'm not an engineer. So I preferred geology over agricultural engineering. So I think that's how you should analyze it. What will work well for you? See the issues with the optionals. See if you can overcome that issues. And if you can't do that because optionals is something you spend the most time with. And if you can't do that, I don't think there's a point in taking that option. And optionals can make you or break you. We say this. Correct. So that is my strategy. I know that it's not a big strategy. But in my case, it was easy for me. Both options work well for me basically. So in your civil service, you took Malayalam literature, right? And your graduation was physics chemistry. Chemistry. So you are not comfortable with it. So chemistry is available in forestry. Yes, it is available. But you did not pick it. You went for geology and forestry. Yes. One thing is chemistry was not really comfortable. Second, chemistry syllabus was much bigger. So I thought that it will take me much more time. I had just two months to prepare. So I had to be practical about it. Correct. Okay. Now let's discuss about the optional preparation strategies. So generally, we have a lot of places where you can actually get training for civil service optionals. That's not the case of forest service optionals. You have very limited places where you can actually get guidance. And even resources, I am not sure how much the availability of resources. So how did you prepare for forestry and geology? As I mentioned before, since I had very limited time, I took classes for both options. I thought that that's a more practical thing to do rather than these two were alien options for me. So I didn't want to waste my time. And I wanted to clear this time itself. So I took classes for forestry. I took classes at Shankar. Karthikeyan sir was a guide. And I think he was my guide throughout till the interview stage. So I think that the important thing about the classes was that Karthikeyan sir was already a forestry. He was a range officer, I believe. So I got a practical aspect of the forestry as well, which I think really helped me understand the forestry better. So in geology also, I took classes, which actually helped me in getting a more perspective because for a science subject, I think having a teacher is a very important thing. Okay. So now coming to your interview. So you took classes and you followed the basic books. Any books, recommendations and all you want to say? Definitely. I mean, this is very common. Everybody follows the same set of books. For forestry, there's a Manikantan Prabhu book, which is like the God book for forestry. And I think you don't need to refer any other book if you are referring Manikantan Prabhu. Only thing is that in Manikantan Prabhu, they have mentioned what they do is, every year when a new question comes in, they add that answer also. But you have to be picky when you read those things. You need to go very deep into all the topics. You have to be very selective. So in each topic, you have to understand the depth and width and go ahead with that. Then for geology, I think K.M. Bunger engineering geology book is the one which I refer the most. But again, the Bunger's book issues that it's a very concise book. So for a beginner, it will be very difficult to understand Bunger book unless you have a better idea. So when you read, if you're a beginner and if you're reading Bunger book, if you don't understand the concept, understand that that's not your issue. It's because Bunger book is very concise. You go ahead and read the same thing in online and you'll get a better idea. And I depend on this book by, I think it is handed or not by Prajesh Jainasar. So he's a senior in forest service and I took his notes in geology and that also helped me a lot. So now let's move to interview. So we have attended two UPS interviews, failed one interview, cleared successfully in the second interview and this is forest service interview. So what changes you made in the preparation strategy for forest services as compared to your UPS interviews? Forest interview as such when I talk to my seniors, what I understood is that it's a technical interview. It is not a technical personality test. But then again, it's technical. So you need to prepare in that area very well so that you can do well because questions will mostly come from that area and I followed that to the letter. So we had a team of four people so we sat together as soon as the results came in. So every day evening we had a discussion so we all prepared something, we came there we shared that notes and we started preparing and this went on for almost a month and this time the interview was like three months after the results came in. So for one month we did this and that really gave me a very good base. So we focused on my home state and the home state Kerala has a lot of forest. So that was a very important area we had to cover and we covered it extensively. Then environment and ecology we covered a lot of topics and I think even world environment topics also we covered very well. So that was the base of my preparation. Then as I moved on to the interview preparation properly, I think I got just around 10 days to prepare for the interview properly because after this time our prelims was there. So after prelims I got 10 days to prepare. So during that time I focused mostly on my mock interviews. So I didn't do a lot of mock interviews as such because I think that at that point of time if you do bad in a mock interview that will affect your confidence a lot. So I went for one-on-one mocks where you'll be comfortable to talk to the people. So as I mentioned before Kathi and Sir did two one-on-one mocks with me. So in the first one-on-one mock I was a disaster. Like I was someone who did well in my second interview. I had that confidence. I went ahead and started talking to him. I thought it went well but after my one-on-one mock he told me that you didn't do well and I felt very bad. So he explained to me what the issue was. My main issue was that I was not speaking in a scientific way. I was speaking in a very generalistic way for a technical interview. So that aspect I never came into my mind. Once he mentioned it and he showed me a few examples how you should be doing it. Then I worked on it. So I think after 5 days I gave another one mocker and he told me this is not the same person. That gave me a lot of confidence because when Sir tells me that it's good after the first mock I thought that okay now there is something I can work on. So I think that is the main aspect I worked on this time. Structuring my answer better. Whatever I know because see when somebody asks you what is western guards or explain western guards to me I got the same question in my interview. So my first time my answer was that western guards sir it is the hilly region in South India. I was interesting in such a way. A layman point of view. But then when I went for the interview I started saying that western guards is this escarpment which runs across six states with a distance of almost 1600 km the average width is so and so and it is famous because it's 5% of the area of India and 30% of India's biological diversity. So when I came into this I'm not saying the exact answer what I said over there but this was a structuring way. So you should be aware of that as a future forester and an environment enthusiast the scientific side you should come in. So I think that was the biggest difference that I made in my preparation this year and hopefully it worked out well. The marks are not yet out but hopefully you would have cleared with good marks let's hope. Now coming to the actual interview so when you went in like what all were the questions you got in the forest from the Forest Service interview board and if you compare with the UPSC interview questions you got in the last two years what differences you felt in the actual interview board. Okay, basically there was a technical interview as I was expecting my interview went in the expected lines only. I got a few general questions like why am I leaving the current service why do you want IFS all those things personal questions. Apart from that the interview was mostly in the area of environment forest etc. I got questions ranging from what is western Ghats to very specific questions about Kerala including there was a question on Plachimada issue, there was a question on Atta Paadi tribal issue there was even a question about the ecological side of Shabrimala he asked me if I went to Shabrimala so I told him yes and then he asked me what is the ecological side of Shabrimala and I explained it and that went well. I got questions like compare western Ghats and eastern Himalayas and contrast both of them I got questions in that area as well for example geologically tell the difference because my optional is geology. I didn't prepare a lot of geology for the interview so I was hoping not to get questions but this was a question I could handle. Geological difference between western Ghats and Himalayas when you trek what geological difference do you see and so on and so forth. So it's mostly in the same line and during that time there was floods happening in both Kerala and Uttarakhand so I got questions based on both of them in Kerala the difference between both of them in Kerala what are the other reasons and so on and so forth. Some basic forest questions were also there for example Shwala forest and those kind of things. So I think it was very technical in my previous interview it was very random so questions came from everywhere so I think my optional was also Malalan Lake Races so there was this one question where ma'am asked me to tell my favourite poem and she asked me to explain it for 4 minutes to do it and I went on and on until she stopped me so I was very excited when I got a chance to explain my favourite poem. So these kind of questions will never come in forest because they are very concerned about what you know about the ecology those kind of aspects and I think general questions were also very very less like there I got international ration question here also I've heard people getting international ration questions sometimes but mostly they stick to it was easier to prepare and expect and anticipate questions in forest. Now I've heard that there is a walking test after you clear the interview or after you get in the service can you explain more about this walking test have you taken it or are you yet to take it? After the results come for the selected candidates in forest the difference is that in civil service after the interview the next day they will have medical but in forest service only after selection they will call you for medical and there is a walking test so for men the walking test is 25 kilometres within 4 hours so it will be conducted in Delhi zoo and you have to complete it in 4 hours time I think for lady candidates I think it's 14 kilometres I may be wrong I'm not sure In 4 hours they have to do it So it's challenging enough to do it because you can't just walk I've been practising now I've realised that just walking won't do I have to jog a bit as well so you need to have endurance so I think endurance is what they are testing you don't have to be fast you have to be strong enough to complete the entire thing Yes you will have a lot of walking to do in the service you know you have to prepare for it You are supposed to do that Now I want to ask generally when aspirants prepare this year I actually prepared only for forest you skipped the civil service so generally when aspirants prepare both like you know they give the civil service mains and same year they try to give the forest mains so how can you integrate your civil service and forest service preparations I don't think I'm the right person to comment on this but if I was writing both one thing I think that people with common option will have an advantage definitely because after civil service usually in the last few years what happens is that civil service mains comes first then after around 50 to 60 days this time you are on 40 days only so after that amount of time you have the forest mains so if you have a common option then you will have already prepared it for mains that itself covers a large area because in forest you have six papers and out of that two papers comes from one option so again four or one papers are left to be prepared so that's a very good thing for people who doesn't have that luxury I think that you will have to work really after the mains you have to start immediately I think GS is the part you can really work on integrating well and when you are preparing for GS mains as well people don't go well with environment, biotechnology, science and technology etc you can put a bit more effort into it so that it will come handy in terms of the other side as well I think that is the area you can really work on now again you are where someone was working like you are already in the ordinance factory service and you are working while preparing at least the systems while you were well working then I think you took leave so again one question I want to ask is about how you can integrate your work life and preparation life like how did you do that and how can people manage that like last time I was the good thing I won't say it's a good thing but one thing that helped me was since it was COVID we had online classes so I could save time commuting from my academy I was in my training so there was no commuting there was no time to go and eat you can get food to your room and so except for the time you have classes I could study whatever time I got so whenever I had time I had to use that and then PT was cancelled so none of those extra activities were there so I got a lot of time to be honest and that really helped me so I didn't have to take leave for problems I just spent till Friday at classes on Sunday I went and wrote the X7 came back I think for people who are preparing along with the work you can find small bits of time here and there so people have been saying this and I've heard many people tell me this and I realise this only after joining the service how you can find little bit of time for example you have one hour of lunch break you can go eat your food sit with your friends and talk or you can go eat your food fast and come back and study so once I started doing this especially after the mains I went back and I had to prepare for and as a backup I wrote problems this year so both these cases I prepared together so I had to find each and every spare time I had in the office there's no way I can study it's a government setup I have to be on my toes every time but in my lunch break is my time so after I finished my lunch in 15 minutes I get around 45 minutes left I sit there I study wherever it is and that really helped in small bits of time so in the morning also you can find a bit of time evening and there's nothing else so mine is an office job so mostly by six o'clock I'll be free so I'll get at least four to five hours at night maybe one or two hours in the morning so that was enough to since I was already preparing and I had some base so that was enough for me so I think for people who are in the working your biggest challenge is time find time whenever you can so wherever you could squeeze time you squeezed it and used it efficiently and Saturday and Sunday are your golden days so go ahead instead of going out with your friends you can sit down and study don't skip it altogether because you'll get bad after a while but once in a while you can skip it it doesn't matter after you get the results nobody is going to tell you why didn't you come to my wedding they'll be happy that you got it so you can use those times that's great so Suraj you have been into the preparation journey for some years I think three to four years you have been in this journey and even though this is your first first forest means first forest interview and the first interview itself you got rank one you have faced failures in the UPSC civil service interview in the first attempt itself you got into the interview which is a big deal but you failed the interview in the first attempt and when you fail from the interview generally people feel very demotivated because the fall is from the heights and in the second attempt also you could fortunately reach the interview get into the service but when you face that failure in the first interview how did you deal with it and how did you keep the motivation all throughout this preparation journey this year also you wrote the problems I think that would be the fourth problems so you have to write the problems again and again so how do you keep yourself motivated and can you tell us more about how did you face the failure and how did you bounce back so I think the motivation part is all about the why once you start civil service preparation there was always a why I am not saying that the why should be one thing and for me the why was not never one thing like I worked in an NGO so I want to get it's not like that my why was to get into a service which gives you satisfaction at the same time you should be able to do something and you should be able to contribute something back so that was my idea of why and for forest as I mentioned before as well I had a lot of connections as well so I always go back to my why's I have written down these things several times right from 2016 I started at that time there was a note later on I write again even before this forest also I start again so writing actually helps me to put things in a perspective and I read it every time I go down but I think the motivation is very overrated in a civil service preparation because you can't be motivated all the time some there are some days when you feel in the morning you wake up you want to go and study you have to you want to break this world down you know you have to do this but other days where you feel like okay what am I getting into why did they start this even so I think it's all about the dedication and discipline is the word I am looking for because it doesn't matter what you feel in the morning as I said you can feel both ways and you can feel intermediate as well okay maybe I can do it maybe I can't do it but no matter what you feel you get up there's a saying right get up dress up and show up same thing you get up dress up and show up at the library if you're going to library or if you're going to school you sit down and study and don't stop until you finish that days work so I think it's as simple as that it's not simple but it's the that's the biggest thing I can say because motivation doesn't last some days it won't come to you and you'll have to find motivation so I have that that also I listen to songs all those things as well I talk to my friends as well but I think the most important thing is my concept of discipline that I have to do this and no matter what happens I won't get up so that has worked some days it won't work but then it's okay you take a break on that day and so I think that's how it works and coming specifically to your question first interview I got 143 and that is the main reason I got out of the list the biggest issue that happened in that interview is that I told you I'm not very comfortable with my graduate subject chemistry so there was one of the members who I think is a chemistry professor and he kept on asking me chemistry even after I told him I'm not very comfortable he actually stripped me into pieces after each question even when the chairman was not looking he made sure that he ensured that everybody knows that I'm not answering it and this was the last person to ask me the question so after that I didn't even get a single question so the interview ended in a very low point till then actually the interview went well but after this there was no coming back so I got 143 and I don't know if I should use this word PTSD but it was similar to that because after the first interview very negative situation I couldn't make myself go to another mock interview and to be honest the second time the first mock interview was a disaster as well I couldn't answer all those things then I took a break and I realized that if I work really well and if I work on my chemistry as well then I'll be more confident but after where I started realizing it's the other way around whatever you know doesn't matter how much you know so I started talking to my friends who were in chemistry a lot of friends are there so I started getting ideas from them and slowly and slowly I started feeling confident about myself and I started feeling that it's okay even if I can't answer a few questions and first time it was like I have to answer everything I have to know everything after I said 2 I don't know continuously the third I don't know I couldn't say I was like I should say something here but later on I started getting comfortable more and more mocks that time I think the second time in 2018 I took almost 18 or 19 mocks I went to Delhi to take 5 or 6 I took around 5 or 6 in Kerala I went to Chennai I went to Bangalore my interview was towards the end the last day was my interviews I had like around 2 months time I took that very well and so that worked well for me so this time again I had analyzed how the interview goes I worked the technical aspects more focused less on myself but daf I worked on but other than that chemistry also I prepared a bit so here I have to mention my girlfriend actually so she was the one person who actually helped me in getting my chemistry right in some sense and maybe building that confidence up so she is doing a PhD in chemistry so she took classes for around which subject she thinks is important I didn't even know which subjects are important I took classes on this last year even this year also this year we don't have time only 10 days were there when then we took 3 classes just so that I feel like I know something at least thermodynamics 4 laws I should be knowing so that level of work we did so again she was a big pillar of support obviously but here is something that nobody could have done that's why I mentioned it here so I worked a lot and my friends used to tell me it's a work that I put in that converter to the interview so I think that is there second side is that I built on my confidence I was very better in terms of confidence when I went a second time I knew that I deserved this and I think that worked out now that you told about your girlfriend in this preparation journey family and friends do play big role in terms of the support system you have in the preparation journey so tell us about your family, your friends the role they played in this preparation journey I think UPSC is a journey which nobody takes alone sometimes you feel like you are taking this journey alone because you are the one who is doing the hard work but everybody is involved, everyone is on the boat and I remember last time when the results came I was here and I got 321s rank so I knew I won't get my first preference I was not really that happy but I told my parents this I went back and I heard this sound they were talking on the phone, they were so excited they were talking to people about this when I started realizing that this is not a journey you are taking alone, this is a journey everybody is involved only that you have to fight this they are in the background so I think my family is my biggest pillar of support they have been throughout I have a sister, she is like a third parent to me as well so she is the biggest person who I go to with any issue I have a bunch of very good friends even inside the UPC circle and outside because you need people outside as well because inside UPC circle once you start saying your bad feelings everybody has bad issues so I have people who is out of this race completely and who can give me perspective from the outside so I think a lot of people are there I shouldn't name anybody because I will miss out on a few names and then they will be back but they know who they are that's my point can you tell more about your parents my father was a teacher he was a headmaster in a nearby UPC school he has retired for the last two years my mother has been a homemaker and my sister is also a teacher and she is not working currently, she has a small kid but she is also a teacher so it's more of a we call a teacher family something like that so I can see the elated mood not just here this year they have double elatement even though it might be yet it has not sung in for you they are still in that elated mood I think I was more satisfied I was more relieved but they were more elated that's it that gives a lot of satisfaction as well very true now generally UPC life is very hectic even though people don't study much at times they say that their life is hectic so when the life is hectic you focus mainly to the preparation and we do not get time for hobbies pursuing our hobbies what I know you are a multi-talented person and I have seen you some of your hobbies so I want to know more about your hobbies and whether you got time to pursue these hobbies in between this preparation I think that hobbies are not something you write for DAF those are things that you have actually correct my hobbies are I play a tabla I am a trained tablist but I am more of a percussionist I play a few instruments my favourite instrument I play it a lot then I have started learning ukulele so instruments are one of my favourite things to do I think it challenges me a lot so you get frustrated after a while you get better at it so once you get better at it and there is this narcissistic side to this as well so for example sometimes I play I record it and put in my status or my Instagram and whatever response I get actually some days you feel very bad about yourself so I think it is okay to feel good about yourself I am not ashamed to say this it is a narcissistic side so I think that is one part and more importantly that helps you focus when I am sitting outside that five minutes I think is some of the longest five minutes so the person who is taking you to the interview board he will make you sit out there you know which board it is they are discussing the previous person's mark and you are waiting for the interview so those five minutes I always play tabla on my legs so that I can focus more I will feel more confident and I do not think about anything else so I will be focusing on the tabla bowls so rather than focusing on what is going to happen next there is a lot in the preparation journey and I think after getting into the service hobbies are very much more important because as an officer it is going to be difficult for you to find friends in the same area those things can happen and even if you find those kind of things you should have your own thing to make you feel make you going it can be as simple as having a meditation as a hobby to even very elaborate hobbies there are people in the service who have very big hobbies which they really pursue so I think that part is very important once you get into the service and I think it has helped me as well whenever I feel down I use these methods to get out of it as you said we can really understand hobbies were not just for daff these are real hobbies and we have seen you play also so it is great let you pursue the same thing even when you are in forest service let people get entertained forest service officer for your colleagues now I want to ask about the service mostly forest service is not a plan A for many people like it is a plan B like they take it along with the exam so people don't take forest service very seriously when they prepare for UPSC they feel like if we get it let us see it like that so what is your advice to those aspirants who have forest service as their plan A and who have forest service as their plan B and both kinds of aspirants will be there so what is your advice to those aspirants who are going to take forest service in the future years forest service as such the problem is that forest service has a different exam and I think why people keep forest service as a plan B at least few of them is that the cutoff of problems is higher so if you keep just forest service as the option many times you may not clear the cutoff and you will be just out of the list when you were originally eligible for civil services so for those people I think that is the best plus strategy because you need to have a backup plan and you need to be sure about getting in if you have a civil service cutoff cleared in glimpse go ahead and write the exam but I know a lot of people who have forest service as the primary plan who dream about forest service who actually want to work in this so I think for them you try to have common option that is one thing if it is possible now I know this time a person who got into the service he had geology as the option for both civil service and forest service and he told me that he took geology as the option only because it is a common option and he cleared both civil services and he didn't come to the interview for us because again he cleared civil service but he had interview so I think that is one strategy people can look for if you are comfortable again optional shouldn't be just based on this but this is one thing you can do if you are confused about this you should understand the service better it is an all India service it has all the benefits, perks, privileges, etc associated with the other all India service although that is not why you do it but I think and as I mentioned before I believe that this is a service with a lot of future not a very glamorous one but something with a purpose I think that is the one tagline which forest service can have so people don't know but it doesn't matter because you are working in a forest and people are not supposed to know and for the people who actually matter the tribal populations the most vulnerable people the forest fringe communities, etc forest department is a very part of their life and part of their livelihood as well so I don't think it can get better than this so much clarity of thought I am sure that you are definitely going to serve the purpose that bigger purpose last question Suraj we know each other from 2017 we have attended an interview then we got more associated in 2019 when you joined Shankar as a MENDER paper correction you were part of feedback faculty team and then we have been seeing each other for a long time we are in the Shankar library preparing, etc and it is a pleasure that Shankaray's academy could be a part of your preparation journey and we would be happy to hear about the role of Shankaray's academy in your end day preparation journey first two items I was not really a big part of Shankar I came for my end day preparation but in my second attempt when I came for end day preparation I came to Trivandrum the first time I was in Bangalore centre then Trivandrum when I came the team was very cordial I remember Lina ma'am being a very cordial person I could come to we had a lot of discussions in Shankar as well since I had like two months of time for interview me and my friends who had late interviews we sat there to prepare as well later on I joined as a mentor and after that Shankar kind of became my go to place in Trivandrum mainly because of the comfort I have over there so it is like you are going to some place you were always the part of and this time for forest I have never I am not going to any other place I sat in Shankar during my two months of leave I sat in Shankar I learned prepared over there then even for the interview phase also I got a few days so then I came there and for interview I think only one mock I took that was from Shankar and one on one mock also I think Lina ma'am arranged a few with some senior IFS officers which was really like eye opening experience and again Karthikeyan sir he is a big pillar of support he went out of his way in fact even before Shankar started the interview program we were talking so I think overall and obviously the team at Trivandrum I should mention this anyway I mean I was very supportive and we have been we celebrated my birthday together this time so I think I don't need to explain any more so it has been a central pillar and for forest I think the forestry optional was there as well so yeah that's it you know better I think really happy as I told part of this preparation journey and really happy to you know see that it ended so well and so beautifully with all in a rank one which we are all really happy about and I am sure that you are going to serve a purpose as you told you have an idea about this purpose and you are looking forward to doing that and I am sure that you are going to be one of the best forest services officers in future and all the very best courage and hearty congratulations once again thank you so much for sending the time thank you