This year saw 52 candidates from Jamia’s Residential Coaching Academy clearing the UPSC CSE exam, including topper Shruti Sharma. Among these 52 candidates, a son of a food vendor also cleared the exam and became an inspiration to many. The aspirant in focus is Masoom Raja Khan who cleared the exam in his fifth attempt, despite coming from a low-income group family.
Today, we present the UPSC success story of Masoom Raja Khan who scored All India Rank 457 to finally get into civil services after preparing for five long years.
EDUCATION
Masoom originally belong to the Sitamarhi district of Bihar. However, he completed all his studies in the national capital. He cleared his 10th from Ratan Chand Arya Samaj Public School in Sarojini Nagar and higher secondary from Vinay Nagar Bengali Senior Secondary School.
After this, he chose the mechanical and automation field and completed his B Tech from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University which comes under the Northern India Engineering Colleges.
Apart from Masoom, the family consists of his father, mother, and two sisters. They all live together. Masoom’s father is a food vendor and has a stall in Safdarjung Enclave. Whereas, his mother is a homemaker. In an interview with media, Masoom said, “I always stayed near children who came from social and economic backward classes and I observed that many times such people don’t get opportunities because they are not privileged enough.”
HELP FROM JAMIA RCA
Masoom entered the Jamia RCA on the basis of PT. Coming from a middle-class family, Masoom did not have to face the crunch of spending money for UPSC coaching as he was availing it for free from Jamia.
Masoom’s parents always supported him in his studies and never forced him to work with his father and contribute to the family. His sister also got married which took another responsibility off his shoulder. To support his daily expenditure, Masoom used to provide coaching to the children living in slums and also worked at the Vision IAS as a counselor.
Providing coaching, he believes, improved his general awareness which helped him in the UPSC exam. The first time he sat for the exam was in 2017, after which it took him four more attempts to finally clear the exam. After facing failure for four straight years, Masoom did not break down but stood up for his vision and aim and cracked UPSC in 2021 with an AIR 457.
He suggests that aspirants should have a clear vision of what they want to do in life and then start preparing for it.
