Starting all over from scratch and rebuilding your life isn’t an easy thing to do. It requires a lot of inner strength, belief, courage, faith, hard work and confidence. IAS officer Kumar Anurag believed in himself and started from zero to fulfil his dream of becoming an IAS officer. He had failed in pre-board and graduation, but he didn’t let failures define his life path.
Indian Masterminds brings the hard earned success story of a young IAS officer who overcame failures to clear UPSC in his first attempt.
BACKGROUND
Hailing from Katihar district of Bihar, IAS officer Kumar Anurag studied in Hindi medium till class 8. Thereafter, he enrolled into an English medium school where he faced lot many problems. He says, “I was an average student during my school days but when I decide to achieve something, no one can push me back.”
He did what he said. He worked hard for his 10th board examination and secured 90% marks in it. However, in class 12, he failed in maths in the pre-board exam. But he worked hard with zeal and determination and scored above 90% in the boards.
FAILED IN GRADUATION
IAS officer Anurag did his graduation from Lady Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi. This was the time when he took his studies very lightly and indulged in fun most of the time. As a result, he failed in many subjects during his graduation. However, he somehow graduated and took admission in post-graduation studies.
He took his failures as life lessons and started improving himself. During his post-graduation, he decided to prepare for UPSC exam. Soon after completing his post-graduation, he started preparing for UPSC with full dedication and hard work.
ACHIEVED HIS DREAM OF IAS
Mr. Kumar Anurag says, “I knew that I was lacking somewhere but successful are the ones who try to improve themselves by accepting their shortcomings.” To clear the toughest examination, he studied hard, made notes, and gave mock tests fiercely. He understood every aspect of the exam properly and the result was that he got selected in his very first attempt in the year 2017.
He bagged AIR 677 in his first attempt but his dream was to become an IAS officer. He made up his mind to achieve his dream and started his preparation again. His hard work paid off and in the second attempt, he made it to the list of top 50 by securing AIR 48 in CSE 2018.
Mr. Kumar Anurag got Bihar cadre and he is currently posted as Assistant District Officer in Bettiah district.
WISE WORDS
The IAS officer now believes that if one wants to prepare for UPSC, then they should leave their previous exam results behind and start afresh. While giving a tip to the aspirants, he said, “If you want to achieve heights in exams like UPSC, you have to start from zero.”
He also told media that, “I myself is an example of this, I lost interest in my studies and was completely immersed in the fun, but when I made up my mind to become an IAS officer, I put in all the efforts and achieved it.”
According to him, one should not show haste during the preparation and each and every topic should be studied very deeply. Hard work and good strategy are the keys to success in this exam.
