Topper's Tips

It is going to be off my head and heart in a couple of days. I have been pestering my brother, ever since the summer of 2005, to share the ways that made him the most successful candidate as per the results of the IAS Exams that year. He is a voracious reader. After four-plus years...he has become a writer at last. In the process I too have written a lot. Our book "Topper's Tips" will be waiting for you in the stands in another 4-5 days. Unique Publications, Delhi is doing the job of making our tips reach the needy aspirants in the best form at Rs.95. It is a small-sized book with about 100 pages.

Some background: The IAS Exam is considered to be the toughest and the most tiring exam in the country. Though this Exam does not test one's quantitative skills and analytical bent of mind as good as the CAT does, IAS Exam is a nightmare for the sheer volume and variety of the subjects to be mastered; and the unimaginably long duration of the selection cycle that spans over a year with three stages - an objective Prelim, a subjective and unnerving Main and finally topped up by a Personality Test. Well, I can go on about the exams for dozens of more lines. Cutting it short, it becomes very essential for an aspirant to be armed with good guidance to wade this Exam. We felt we could and we need to help here.

Anyone who is even remotely related with this Exams would agree that right guidance, especially from candidates who have cleared the Exam, is not easily available in a systematic way. Rather, there are thousands of "free advices" and "glorious myths" that end up confusing and spoiling the efforts of thousands of genuine candidates every year.

Topper's Tips is an attempt to clear the myths and share our wisdom acquired over a period of about ten years. Yes, ten years. My brother started with the Prelims 2000, I ended it with the Interview 2009. Luckily we both have cleared the Exam. We sincerely hope this book will be much help to many; and sincere candidates can avoid wasting years in reinventing the wheel.

We have tried to keep the language as simple as possible. We have also put in very practical insights. We hope it is going to be useful. If you happen to come across a copy in the coming weeks, please feel free to write to us.Thanks!

Our sincere thanks to all who made this book possible.

Fingers crossed!

Happy Diwali

Happy Diwali! Unlike the last year there are no crackers for the background this time. But the feeling is better now.

(I clicked this Tirunelveli Twilight a few days back with a Nokia E63)

Lions, donkeys and angels

Agreed. I was quite busy with my job as well many other interesting things in life that I found it difficult to maintain my average monthly post rate; But the poor Internet connectivity in our country is the real culprit. Even right now I am not typing this live on pilanipix. I will have to take this in a pen drive and locate a good Internet centre to make this available to you.

Well, my mind is having a words-jam. Words-jam is not like the ones that come in those transparent glass bottles with tight lids and bright labels; it is like the traffic jam. There are thousands of words struggling hard to come out my head at the same time, mainly due to the congestion caused by this delay in my post. The past six weeks have been quite exciting. Before I forget, let me tell you about a sarcastic yet heavy statement I came across today -"Bureaucracy is a donkey manufacturing factory". Well, I could not get any meaning out of it until that gentleman gave the addendum, "It catches lions and creates donkeys out of them". It is in reference to the tough civil service exams that tries to get the best talent available to the manage our country's administration. And how over a period of time we fail to make the best use of this talented human resources, and end up turning these smart fellows into mediocre officials who close their eyes before opening their pens.

I too was supposed to be a lion when I was caught by the civil services exam two years back. It is a different matter that I am not sure whether they caught what they wanted. But, I am sure I have not yet been turned into a donkey!

I am happy to have come across a few who still remain fearless lions even after dozens of years of service. I interacted with some of them today; I felt proud to have been caught. This moment I feel like retyping my earlier post; exactly the same way I typed it a year back. There are a few good civil servants scattered here and there; And these are the ones who keep the system in tact without any implosion or explosion. As one of my bosses said, these are like the angels sent by God in very small numbers - but to the right places, at the right time. I shudder to think of a situation where such self-driven and self-motivated people are absent from the system. With such people around there is enough inspiration!

(October 14th, 2009)

Back to Office

After a gap of about, exactly four full years I will be back at an office. Though it is just as a trainee for two months, the mere fact that I will have an office, a boss, timings, canteen, probably some place to park myself etc after a huge gap makes me somewhat thrilled. Also nostalgic. I was serving my notice period this day, four years back.

Tata for now... I got a train to jump into.

You know you are an Officer when....

Just one more to go... The last paper of the Departmental Exam is slated for tomorrow. The Departmental Exams are like the semester exams in colleges. These are a part of the larger bureaucratic formality, apparently designed to ensure that Probationers turn out into full-fledged Officers by the end of their intensive training (If we allow repetition of letters, "intensive" and "insensitive" are anagrams). There are three semesters and two Departmentals here.

From my point of view there is much, much more to these Exams - the foremost of them being the time one gets for oneself. This because unlike the normal days - on an Exam day you are inside a closed, classroom only for three hours at max. On other days it is about seven hours spread over nine hours and the day begins at 6 AM, with the compulsory morning PT. Thus one is choked during the normal days. Exams give me a great relief from all these. Added to this is the special bonus called the preparatory leave, for about a week before the Exams. It is exciting!

Above all the best part of the Exams is that they give me the compelling reason to watch good movies frequently. On the usual days, I am sapped by the end of the long lectures and I don't really feel like sitting in front of the system. But these days we are supposed to have been working very hard for the Exams and that means we need to take good breaks and that means watching movies often without any kind of guilt or discomfort. Also my group-study unit members never say "No" when it comes to opening any .avi or .dat file!

Over the past one week of Exams we have seen some of the best movies I have seen ever... It started with The Virgin Spring (Sweden/Bergman/1960), Mongol (Mongolia/Bordov/2007), The Counterfeiters (Germany/Ruzowitzky/2007), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico/Toro/2006) and stands with The Downfall (Germany/Hirschbiegel/2004) that we watched last night. It is difficult to single out the best one out of these...however if compelled I would go for Mongol...er...also The Downfall. Mongol traces the life of the most famous person from Mongolia - Ghengis Khan. In addition to the authenticity one can feel in this movie, the back ground score also needs a special mention. It captivates you.

Another "cute" part of the Departmental Exams is that one is offered water, snacks and cups of tea at one's seat itself. During the normal class days the snacks and tea cans are kept outside the classrooms and the whole area regularly reminds me of the ration store where I had fought out for a few litres of blue kerosene many years back. (Just imagine...160 officer trainees v/s 2 tea cans and a few biscuit packets!)But being the Exam time, nobody expects us to simulate a PDS shop situation. Also, being "Officers" it is understood that we can not survive without a cup of tea for more than two hours at a stretch. So...this seat-delivery of tea and biscuits! Good idea!

After seeing the winning side in movies like Saving Private Ryan or say The Pianist, it is quite chilling to see the losing side in The Downfall. Not just the story of the losing side (that we have seen in the Vietnam War movies like The Full Metal Jacket or The Deer Hunter), but that of the last few weeks of the downfall of the greatest modern times dictator; Of the pain of a man whose great vision is shattered; Of the unmanageable shock of a leader as he sees his men betraying him; And of a family and group of die-hard loyals who actually kill themselves as a tribute to Fuhrer. The scene where a mother poisons all her children one after the other in their sleep is sure to bring tears even to the rocks. Bruno Ganz has lived as Adolf Hitler in this movie. Sometimes, he even makes us pity that beast called Hitler. Hats off boss!

Coming to the tea...I just think of those exams of school days, especially my Higher Secondary Exam. I would rate that as the toughest Exam I have ever taken, for the sheer amount of pressure and the stakes involved. But even during those exams, there was no seat-delivery of tea...forget seat-delivery there was not even a tea can anywhere in that vicinity. All one could do was to take a quick walk outside and have a glass of water kept from a huge stainless steel drum in the corridor.

I am an Officer now!

(To know more click here...)

Lazy Photos

(Window View)

There were days. many years back, when I used to roam around with my bulky Cosina manual SLR camera. That camera used to fill almost half of my briefcase. Today, after a 2-year relation with a Sony 5.1 mp digital camera, I am tied up with a Nokia 3110. Though I take this one wherever I go, it is not for for good snaps; it is just to use the mobile. I no longer "look" for good frames. I also miss those moments of enjoyable, anxious waits in the photo studio...for the negatives to be turned into photographs. Those moments of wait really used to race my heart. I used to remember almost all the 34 or so frames I had clicked, and eagerly waited to see how they have shaped up on print. The moment I see the studio boy bringing the photos (they are generally a slightly wet at this point of time), I literally used to pounce on him. It gave one a kind of high to see the snaps on print for the first time. It is no longer today.

(First Rain)

Of course no one asked me to throw away that manual SLR and get settled for mobile camera. Probably I have lost much interest in photography. Or another angle to it is - I am getting lazier with age. The latter is more realistic.

(Lazy)

For example, the snap above was clicked while I was trying hard to catch up some sleep. But people who do not know this story behind the snap might think that I have worked really hard to fix the frame, conceptualise such an innovative angle, and the snap too has come out as impressively as planned. Only you and I know that this is a lazy photo.

(Wet Rickshaw)

The Golden Carpet (below) was taken by my Sony before we broke up. I was quite satisfied about this taken in the corridor outside my room, but had it been a few years back - I would have surely enjoyed those anxious moments in the photo studio.

I don't know what I did...

It was about seven monsoons back I had my first brush with the subject called book keeping and accountancy. (For the removal of any doubts - seven monsoons back means in the month of August of the year 2002) It was called as Managerial Accounting that time. It involved a lots of intimidating terms like provision for doubtful debts, appropriation account, sundry creditors, etc...and the most frightening of them all, the two words that always bagged the prize for the best couple - debit & credit! For some peculiar reasons known only to a select few called the Chartered Accountants, Debit&Credit were always together like Siamese Twins. The subject also involved rampant use of the small, black gadget called the calculator; one got to fill many A4 sheets with lots of numbers partitioned by numerous lines - horizontal and vertical. The final thing that you created was called the Balance sheet or Consignment account or Joint Venture account, based on what was asked in the question. But my answer did not vary much between the questions. Only the heading changed. The marks I got also did not vary much. Only the denominator kept changing! And it does not end there, one is also supposed to draw a horizontal line at the bottom and generate a mosaic of words and numbers under the title - Working Notes.

Coming to the calculator...during those four years that preceded that monsoon seven years back (!!hold on..hold on.. I just meant during my engineering days that preceded my MBA days), I had used my calculator quite extensively. In fact to unimaginable levels. Those people in my college did not believe in words, they spoke the language of numbers - and only numbers. As such I did not have any problems with that, but the real issue was they also expected me to speak the same language. Even in a paper called General Biology, that we did in our first year, there were numerical problems! Well.. not only numbers, usually all the papers also had some very bizarre symbols like.. d, a f, g, s, D, F, y etc.

I was equally scared of these symbols. Especially the last one. It reminded me of Trishul - the Hindu mythological weapon of Lord Shiva and many local deities. It represented the omnipotent, unbridled force that would destroy any evil. But I was using these symbols on a day-to-day basis. I was scared. Naturally. But my calculator was not afraid of any symbol - it had all these symbols and much more. The calculator was called Casio V.P.A.M fx-100s.

But the calculator needed for Book keeping and accounting is like our dhobhi's puny donkey. It has just the 10 digits, keys for the four basic mathematical operations, and the essentials like "=", MR, % etc. But it is expected to do carry loads and loads of clothes that ranged from rags to rich shirts. For instance it is supposed to find out out the right entry for the Stock valued at Rs.8,700 that was destroyed by fire on 25.03.2007, but for which the insurance company admitted a claim of Rs.5,800 only, that too in the next year. Poor donkey! About the dhobhi.. the lesser said, the better!

We are having a small test of accountancy and book-keeping tomorrow.. and I really don't know what I did many monsoons back...