Sagar Kaushik’s Story From B.Tech to leaving a lucrative job in BSF, and Securing AIR 547 in UPSC CSE 2023

How are you feeling?

Quite relaxed and a pleasant feeling. When the results were out, first of all the excitement was that I have to come to meet you but because of family celebrations, I was a little busy in that but at the back of my mind all I wanted was to come and meet you.

What was the first reaction after seeing the result?

The result was on expected lines, not because of my assessment but because you always said that I will make it.

Till date, I still believe that if you didn’t build the confidence in me, I wouldn’t make it because I was not that confident.

The first reaction was relaxed and a bit emotional that finally I made it to the list. Over a period of time, during the journey of preparation, there was a feeling that things may not turn out to be on expected lines, there are times when you feel low. Aspirants who prepared together also quit so you get into a self-doubt phase. But I believe that the gestation period is long with the vast syllabus and everything.

You need perseverance and you need time to build that personality.

Tell me one thing. You talk about perseverance. The support of the family must have been there in this long journey. Do you remember some such instance where it seems that perhaps your family also had a little doubt about you succeeding this exam?

There was doubt for sure. But they used to say that effort is there, eventually the Almighty will reward the efforts and whatever the Almighty will do will be for good. And from childhood it was taught that efforts are never wasted.

Actually the issue is that we put effort in one place and we think that the result should come there but life goes in such a way that somewhere it will accumulate and produce the result where you do not expect it and when you are really tired with your efforts, at that very moment the Almighty will give you the reward.

Which attempt was this?

This was my fourth attempt but frankly speaking, this was my first sincere attempt in which I did proper answer writing and proper things.

I gave my first attempt in 2020, the Prelims was postponed due to Covid but it co-incided with my last semester exams and I just got a gap of 6 days between my semester exams and the Prelims exam. so that attempt got wasted.

I gave CAPF in December which I cleared then I got engaged in that and then I again gave the Prelims in which I scored 103 and then I thought of preparing for Mains but I cleared all the stages of CAPF on 20th December and UPSC mains was scheduled from 5th January.

Today when I look back it seems that it was a wrong decision that I gave preference to CAPF as compared to Civil Services. If I hadn’t given preference and prepared for Mains in those three months instead of preparing for CAPF interview then maybe things would have been different today.

I gave Mains without studying much and then when I got selected in CAPF I became very lenient in my approach. I recall I didn’t study anything and went to give Prelims the following year without studying because I wanted to try. I already got the service in CAPF and many attempts were left for UPSC.

So the third attempt was spoiled but the sincere effort was made when I left BSF post, after that I started answer writing and my friend from BSF suggested that I should start answer writing for Mains from the MGP program of ForumIAS. She had done it from there and she also got selected in that attempt she got Reserved List 52.

Tell me, you left a lucrative job, right? People prepare for CAPF, you left the job. How did you stand by that decision?

All the credit for this goes to my father and mother. They always told me to do what I wanted to do. They never pushed me. They always gave me examples that if you want to enjoy right now, just enjoy. They never told me to study or not to enjoy.

My father’s simple approach was if you want to enjoy, do it well, if you want to study, study well, whatever you want to do, do it and we will not tell you what you have to do. They just explained that look, if you enjoy now, things will be tough later. He always said that even if I get old I will still feed you, you just chase your dreams.

They never forced me, just told me that this can be done. I remember when I didn’t even sit for the placement in BTech, I was the only one among my whole batch who didn’t sit for placement. Teachers asked why not, that was my confidence that I don’t want it, I had different plans. My father didn’t even question me.

Relatives questioned why not, why didn’t you take the placement, you did B.Tech from a good place and your friends got placed in good places. So why didn’t you take the placement?

My father said okay, whatever he is doing, he doesn’t listen to me but the reality was that I listened to him only. They never pushed me. When I got selected in CAPF and went there it was kind of a different environment, a positive environment, there was a celebration so quitting from there was different. But I remember that day I decided to come back, and I called my father and said I need one and a half more years. My father said okay, if you are not feeling well there should I come to pick you up, or will you come back by morning? They didn’t ask what will you do or what not, they had that kind of guts that okay we will see what happens.

My father always told me that we have one life, let’s explore. They always stood by me but yes over a period of time social pressure came, we faltered a little as a family but yes, God is there and supports you with time. I gave many exams but what happens is with civil services you can’t prepare for other exams, so there were setbacks there too, but okay, and it paid off, so there is a satisfaction.

What will be your routine after the results?

The routine will be the same as it is now. I will take a little break and then start preparing for the next stages.

Do you feel a burden of expectation in a middle-class family?

Self-doubt was there, not because I was comparing myself with my family, but because after doing B.Tech if I fail, then the people who were with me have gone ahead, and I have to start from scratch. So there was a self-doubt that if I fail here, then what. There was self-doubt, but my family never gave me pressure that you have to go this high. They are like, if we bind you to go this high, then maybe your flight will be limited to that. We leave you open, you can go as high as you want.

Can you give two or three suggestions to the aspirants?

The first suggestion is to be confident. Be confident not because you will do it today or not, be confident that it will happen if you give effort. Maybe it will take two or three years, but it will happen. Have that clarity. I made a mistake, I myself say that I gave different exams. I gave SSC CGL, in which I scored 160 plus marks in Tier 1 twice, which was quite a good score. So I gave different exams, but today I regret that if I had focused on UPSC from the start then things would have been different.

So don’t get distracted by exams or other things. Block the people who point out negative things to you. Put a physical barrier that you don’t like them, just block them and keep yourself away from those negative things. And take the constructive criticism from your close ones.

Don’t let emotion overpower you.

Do you have any suggestion regarding the preparation strategy?

The PYQs are the Bhagavad Gita for this exam. Do PYQs for Prelims and Mains. What happens is we take the PYQs from 2011 and flip the pages, tick the questions, and move ahead. This is not the way to do PYQs.

PYQs should be from 1979. Be very clear because questions repeat. They don’t repeat the immediate year but repeat the old questions. There was a question regarding Mitakshara in 2018 which was kind of random for us because it was not in the sources, but later it was seen that it was asked in 1980. The same question was asked in 1990. So you need to see that.

You need to do PYQs subject-wise. In the market, you get them subject-wise but what you need to do is to make them topic-wise. For example, in Ancient History, sort out the questions of the Stone Age. Take the A4 size sheets and make notes topic-wise. Do PYQs from 1979 and later revise them repeatedly.

This will make your subconscious mind adapt to the important topics and the chances of questions being asked from them. This will help you in the exam as you will be able to recall the points. I did the same in my optional, which was Geography.

I did topic-wise and then saw which topics were from the questions. I wrote answers to those questions from my notes and added current affairs to them. Only those were my final notes. So around 50 pages of notes were made for one unit and around 1000 pages of notes for the optional. But what was the plus point, they were handwritten notes. I wrote them myself and knew the importance of each point. It helped me a lot.

You need to channelize your hard work smartly. Smart study is not about picking a tip and doing it. Over a period of time, you develop the habit that when you revise for the last time, you have to read only the highlighted points. That is smart study.

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