From the 22-year-old whose mother rolled out thousands of rotis to pay for his education to the man who slept on platforms to get free coaching and cracked IIT, over the last few years, we have seen candidates who have crushed crippling poverty and fought odds to follow their UPSC dreams.
These achievers prove that no financial crisis, hardship, and adversity can be a deterrent from attaining their goals because they were willing to do everything it took. They gave it their best shot, and the results are out for everyone to see!
1. How Thousands of Rotis Made By This Mother Fuelled her Son’s UPSC Dream
Hasan Safin. Source: Facebook/Hasan Safin
22-year-old Hasan Safin, who cracked the Union Public Services Commission exams 2017, with an all-India rank of 570, credits his success to the unconditional love and support of his mother.
Hailing from a low-income family from the village of Kanodar in Palanpur district of Gujarat, his parents worked in a small diamond unit. There were several days when he would go to sleep on an empty stomach. But his parents knew Hasan’s hunger for education was far beyond the physical need to fill his stomach. So his mother Naseem Banu began rolling out hundreds of rotis for local restaurants and marriage halls.
Waking up at 3:00 a.m. every day, she would make anywhere between 20 to 200 kilos of medium-sized rotis earning Rs 5,000-8,000 a month–all of which was collected to fund his education.
Such was his dedication that he also received help from a local businessman who spent Rs 3.5 lakh to fund Hasan’s two-year stay in Delhi, including the fees of a coaching institute, travel, and accommodation. Read his success story
here.
2. How 75 Percent Loss of Vision Could Not Keep Jayant From Cracking UPSC!
Jayant Mankale. Source: Facebook/Jayant Mankale
While clearing the UPSC is no cakewalk, doing it while being a visually-challenged candidate with no financial resources even to afford audio books or screen readers for preparation can be taxing.
“I could not afford audio books or a screen reader. Therefore, I started listening (to) various debates on the radio, Lok Sabha, and Rajya Sabha TV. I took pictures of pages through my mobile and often zoomed in to read them. I have never read a National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) book, and I couldn’t use hand-written notes, which made preparation very difficult,” says Jayant Mankale from Beed district.
Despite all odds, this visually-impaired man who lost 75 percent of his vision in 2014 to retinitis pigmentosa secured the All-India rank of 923 in his fourth attempt for UPSC this year.
While his mother and sister sold homemade spices, pickles, and other food items to help him, his late father’s pension did little to pay off his college loans. But he was fortunate to get guidance from Pravin Chavan and Manohar Bhole free of cost. Read his story
here.
3. Farmer’s daughter ranks 23 in UPSC
Tapasya Parihar. Source: Facebook
25-year-old Tapasya Parihar nailed the UPSC exams this year after she secured an AIR 23 among the 990 selected candidates. The young daughter of a farmer hails from the underdeveloped village of Jowa in Madhya Pradesh, that has a sparse population of only 800 people and an overall literacy rate of 63%. Most girls in this village never had the opportunity to pursue education as many of them have to get married and become mothers at a tender age.
But Tapasya, whose educational dreams were also supported by her father and family cleared the exam in her second attempt. Although she attended coaching classes in Delhi for her first attempt, she failed to make it through the preliminary examination.
So the law student decided to quit coaching and decided to prepare on her own the second time around. She proved all naysayers wrong when she not only cracked the competitive exam but also managed to rank among the top 25!
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan praised the “farmer’s daughter from Narsinghpur” who left no stone unturned to reach her goal.
