Born in a small township in West Bengal, Burnpur, Soumyadip Bhattacharya was never interested in civil services as he thought it was not his cup of tea. His father is an Indian Railways employee and mother was a school teacher for few years. Soumyadip pursued engineering in ECE from Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata and had great interest in Football.
While growing up his father used to tell stories of hard work his bosses (IRAS officers) had done in their lives and how they cleared the UPSC exam after many failures. However, he was never interested in his talks and thought why do people waste five years just to get a job.
FIRST STEP TOWARDS UPSC
During engineering Soumyadip made some good friends and with their support he managed to score well in his exams and even landed job offers from two big IT companies. However, he did not opt for the job mainly because of the fear of coding and in a hope of getting a government job.
He then went on to pursue M. Tech in Control System in Jadavpur University and simultaneously started preparing for the PSUs exams. He was ultimately selected in one of them and started working there from October 2011. However, during the training period of six months, his attitude towards life changed and he started dreaming big.
He got various advices of trying for Indian Engineering Service (IES) but was not really interested in that. He then explored the syllabus of civil services and was shocked to see that all the subjects which he need to prepare were among the favourites during school days. Luckily, he was transferred to New Delhi in November 2012 where he took his first step towards civil services.
A BIG BUMPY RIDE
Three months before appearing for the first prelims, he got married to his better half, Nupur. He failed in the exam and started his preparation from June 2013 and joined a coaching for his optional subject, Geography. Geography was his instant optional as he loved it during his schooling days when he used to study from his mother.
However, in 2015 it is was a complete breakdown for him as faced critical challenges in personal life. In a media article he wrote, “My mind was crippled into a cycle of frustration and anxiety (None of them were related to UPSC and I had appeared in Prelims -2015, but unable to clear).”
He then consulted a psychiatrist and the situation started to improve from Dec -2015, with medicine and counseling. He again started his preparation seriously from January 2016. His wife helped him out during this time by making notes from Yojana, Kurukshetra and collecting newspaper articles.
He utilized his time properly way and even attempted mock test during travelling while visiting sites in and around Delhi. He finally cleared the prelims in 2016 and was also happy with his mains performance. For personality test he focused on the DAF and also cleared the interview stage smoothly. This time all the stars were aligning for him and on the evening of 31st May, 2017, he successfully cleared the Civil Services Examination -2016.
