Anatomy of an IAS Aspirant

There are more than 3 lakh who apply for this exam. Only top 60 or so become IAS and few more get other allied services. So, what makes one still try for this exam. What is in it that which attracts people from all walks of life. There are engineers, there are doctors, there are PhDs in physics, philosophers, international affairs students etc. to name a few. IAS exam is supposed to be the toughest exam in the world in terms of the depth and breath of knowledge expected from the candiates. Is it just this fact that pulls them?
Nope. It can't be this simple. The best things to do to find out is this: Ask them.
Yes this is exactly what i did. I asked them. Many of them. In fact, whomever i met. So i got some data. Then i am a psychology student. So I also used my psycho brain to further analyze the data. Then i am a green belt in six sigma. So i also used statistics to find out if my conclusions are statistically significant or is it just random variation in the great game of Holy God. Finally, iam a blogger. So thought of inflicting my results on the innocent site called blogger and torture all those who come to read my blogs. (Generally no one reads blogs now a days as everyone is busy writing one!!, still bloggers are true karmayogis and are not bothered whether someone reads or not, they just do karma...ie. blogging) So... here i go.
Ist Class: The social servants:
These guys believe that they are born for social service. To help the people come up in life. They want to work for the society. To create a situation where everyone has opportunities to come up in life. IAS helps them to do so, or so they believe. Therefore they want to get into IAS. There are very few who belong to this class actually, but most behave or act as it they belong to this category.
II Class: The Power cravers:
These people attach great value to the power that comes with the position of an IAS. The red bulb, the security, the salutes, the bunglow, the people saalaming them and so on....This category candidates attach great value to the outward symbols which projects them as powerful. They may or may not be considerate towards needs of the society but they are certainly bothered about whether their car has that light on top or not. How high is the chair inside the office is more important than how comfortable the people under them are. This group is a bit bigger than the first group. These people also have political aspirations later in life. To become a politician or minister. The members of this group are either from families of civil servants or from influential members of society. However, they can be from any group but then they will also have something common with other groups especially with the III Class i discuss below.
III class: The money chasers:
They are behind the money. They believe that there is much to make in the flowing Ganges of corruption and it is foolish to stand aside and watch while others help themselves. So, they remove all their clothes of dignity and honour and are ready to jump naked into the river of corruption once they clear the exam. Unfortunately this is the biggest class though people try to camouflage and not appear to be of this class. However it is also heartening that this class has the highest failure ratio in exam. Something is good about UPSC that it manages to separate them somehow at some stage. I don't know how. Where do these candidates come from? They can be anyone from poor farmer's son who has toiled hard to send his son to delhi for preparations to a rich businessman's son. They have killer instinct when it comes to killing others. It hardly matters if the money that they are planning to make belongs to someone else rightly. They have many anecdotes to support their claims. They tell stories of straight officers who got posted into remote areas because they were not corrupt. They talk about people who got plush postings because they were corrupt. Their contact is contagious and they can turn anyone to believe that corruption is the only way to survive in babudom. Perhaps they are right, or perhaps they are just finding reasons to justify the way they are.
IV Class: The dodos:
I know that a dodo class exists in all exams. what i didn't know was that it exists in this exam too. Dodos are those who come to take the exam because their dying grandfather laid his hand on his son's head and pestered him to vow before goddess saraswati that he would make his son (i.e. his grandson) an IAS officer in typical hindi film style. I had a batchmate in a coaching class who wanted to clear this exam just because it was her mother's wish. God...why doesn't everyone's mother wish the same. Anyway, there are considerable number of people whose father, mother, mama, chacha, tata, tau or anybody in the family inspired...nay...pestered him/her to appear for this exam. Needless to say, the motivational level of this group is a bit low and hence the success ratio.
V Class: The downtrodden:
No, i am not talking about the reserved candidates. They are good enough. The downtrodden here means those who have never tasted success in their life and want to prove to the world once and for all what they are. I had a friend of mine who was suffering from this syndrome. It is actually a psychological problem. People who are less than mediocre and believe that they are failures in life always choose tough goals. Why? So that they can fail and say. See...i told you it is very tough. And see, i am always a failure. this world is not fair. It cheats me all the time. (On the contrary the high need for achievement people choose moderately difficult goals: this is McClelland's theory not mine). So these cribbers are also a part of crowd.
VI Class: The Balanced:
This is a class that intrigues me most. This has good people in it. Talented. Smart. Professionals. They know where they are heading. They are ready to work hard. Put their efforts and their two cents of bet. They know what it takes to crack the exam. They can do it. They are ready to help the society but are also ready to take some money if need be. They are not very much bothered about power but they want it to achieve their goals. They have the highest success ratio. The drawback: They are not ready to challenge wrong practices, if it exists. Maintain the status quo and do what you can inside the system. Apart from this, they appear as the perfect candidates.
hmmm....so that was it. I don't know if some more groups exist.
If yes and if you know, do let me know.


Tiru