Grit & Gumption

Each year about 300,000 bright young hopefuls write the Civil Services Exam in an attempt to become part of a very select group in the country. Only 400 make it. Last year, Manoj Sadasivan, 28, was one of them. In many ways, he's just another young man who has made it. But not quite. As he says, "this is probably the first time in the history of India that someone who can't hear, has never attended college and has had no teacher after school, has cleared the Civil Services exam." In his own words...

"My interview with the UPSC board took place in May 2000, and took an hour and forty minutes. It usually takes only twenty or thirty minutes for most candidates. Mind you, the interaction between the five interview board members and myself was as quick as for anyone else. That's because whenever I was asked a question, it was immediately typed on a computer and projected on the wall in very large letters, so everyone could see. In fact the board members probably communicated with me even faster than with other candidates, because the typist was very, very fast!

It was only in 1997-98 that I set my sights on the IAS. Until then I seemed to be following a directionless path, thinking I should become a chartered accountant like my father. I really feel that if he had been alive, my thinking would have been clearer. But I was just four when he died in 1976. This was a major watershed in my life. Until then we had led a very comfortable life in Penang, Malaysia, where I was born and where father was an assistant director of Income Tax. I can even remember my nursery school and our travels in Europe. But all that changed when we returned to India and to Trivandrum after father's death even though I was not hearing impaired then. Looking back, I think it was like moving from a five star hotel to a bed and breakfast lodge! It took me a long time to adjust to the new situation.

My life has been fairly uneventful though lonely, since I was an only child. Cricket and reading fiction were really my only two interests. Later though, I developed an interest in the stock market as well as long distance running. At the time, although I completed Class X with a distinction, I certainly showed no signs of genius through ten years of school! In fact, in the last two years of school, I was in trouble for shortage of attendance and had to be bailed out by a friendly doctor. I had a motorbike which was quite unusual in those days, and was the average carefree youth gallivanting around town! However, I always took care to work very hard at least three months before the exams every year, and not only topped my batch, but was ranked 19th in the university.

" Then came a drastic change! What a topsy turvy world it became after that. In 1989, at the age of 17, I had a severe bout of meningitis and hovered between life and death for over a week. When I left the hospital a month later, I had lost my hearing completely, my eyesight partially and could not walk. I did regain my eyesight and began to walk properly, but my hearing had been lost permanently. Nothing had prepared me for the next four years, the most difficult period in my life. With no support from anyone other than my mother and a complete loss of self confidence, I virtually locked myself up in the house, shut in my own world.

After such an isolated existence in many ways after 1989, perhaps it was only natural that I was most influenced by the hundreds of books I read during this period, particularly on world history. One of the best researched and written books that I have read is "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", in which William Shirer describes the life and times of Adolf Hitler.

The one thing I did was study very hard. Despite being bedridden for about a year I did not lose a single year of college. I had already joined an institute of correspondence education and by 1992, I had become the top ranker in Kerala University. I received the National Merit Scholarship from the Government of India for my pre-degree, B.Com and later my M.Com courses.

The local media publicity and the fact that I slowly began to emerge from the four walls of my home gave me the confidence to lead a "normal" life as before. The fact that I could communicate with people well, since I could lip read very well and had no speech impairment helped. Clearly all was not lost, and with renewed enthusiasm I began to chart out my career. My sights were set on following in my father's footsteps. After completing M.Com and again topping the university, I joined a CA firm for an articleship of three years, but I felt the need for change. And opted instead for the Civil Services.

Once I had decided that the IAS was my goal, I began to work in real earnest. Ten hours a day for two years, concentrating on Commerce for the preliminary exam and History and Management as optionals for the "mains". As before, I never had a teacher to guide me and somehow I never wanted one. Even now, I continue to be a loner, preferring my own company to that of friends. In retrospect I realise that a teacher could have helped me focus more on key topics and the hours spent on relatively unimportant areas could have been avoided. But that's how it was and now here I am, having qualified for the Civil Services, ranked 222, and not sure which service I will get.

Five years from now, I see myself pursuing higher education in one of the best universities in USA and then a place in the United Nations maybe. I would definitely like to play a role in the disability sector too, but still do not know the best way to go about it. But all that's in the future. For the moment, one thing is sure. I will continue to try the Civil Services until make the IAS."

Source: Success & Ability, Volume 6 No. 1
Issue: Dated Jan-Mar 2001