Gamini Singla stayed away from her friends for almost three years, never went on vacation and avoided family meetings and events.

She stopped eating out, stopped going to the cinema and stayed away from social media.

Instead, she wakes up early in the morning at her home in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh and immerses herself in textbooks. In this way, she used to study for 10 hours every day.

During this time, she memorizes the information, takes mock tests, watches YouTube videos of those who have cracked these exams and reads newspapers as well as self-help books on various topics. During this time, his parents and brother were his only companions.

"Loneliness becomes your companion," says Gamini Singla. This isolation gives you the opportunity to move forward.

She was preparing for the country's civil services exams, considered one of the toughest exams in the world. It can probably only be compared to China's Gaokao, which is the national-level college entrance exam in China.

Young men and women join the country's civil services through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examinations of India.

Every year more than a million candidates apply to appear in the tough three-stage exam. Less than one percent of them manage to make it to the written test or the second stage.

When Gamini Singla sat for the exam in 2021, the pass rate was the lowest in eight years. More than 1,800 candidates appeared for interviews and finally only 685 men and women qualified.

Gamini Singla finished third in the exam, with two women ahead of her and one woman behind her, for the first time in the history of the exam. He qualified to be part of the elite IAS (Indian Administrative Service). Most of the successful candidates run the country as Collectors of India's 766 districts, senior government officials and managers of state-owned companies.

The 24-year-old Gamini said, "The day my result came, I felt a weight lifted off my head." I went to the temple and then went to dance.

Sanjay Srivastava, a sociologist at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, says that in a country where good private jobs are limited and the state has a large presence in everyday life, public service is highly desirable and powerful. Is. Government jobs also come with many perks like loans at concessional rates, rental subsidies, travel and vacations, etc.

Also civil service is very attractive to people from small towns. "It can be easy enough to join the private sector, but it takes cultural capital to get ahead," says Srivastava. On the other hand, going into the civil service itself is cultural capital.'

Like other candidates, Gamini Singla is an engineering graduate, a computer engineer who did an internship with banking giant JP Morgan Chase. And like others, he had his sights set on eventually becoming a bureaucrat. While going round the local government transport office to get his driver's license, he saw a bureaucrat there and asked for an appointment (he got an appointment) to get his guidance.

"This journey is very difficult," she says. It takes a lot of time, and there's a lot at stake.'

In an age when many people have no idea what to do with their lives, Gamini Singla's story of tireless hard work and sacrifice offers a glimpse into India's rigorous examination system that is never-ending. This includes studying, family involvement, finding ways to save time and avoiding any distractions and almost complete isolation from the world. "There are moments of frustration and fatigue," she says. It's very mentally exhausting.'

Gamini Singla followed a plan that looked like a marathon training plan. To take care of his health and reach his destination, he adopted a diet of fruits, salads, dry fruits and porridge. To ensure that time was not lost, she would jump into her room two to three hundred times every three hours instead of going out for exercise.

Free time needs to be used wisely so she reads 'self-help' books on various topics to help solve problems. They took multiple online mock tests to test their skills. For example, how can you answer 100 questions in a general knowledge objective test in two hours? Says Gamini Singla: 'When I listened to the videos of the [past] toppers, I realized that everyone knows the answers to 35-40 questions, and the rest are solved on guesses.'

She says that since one of her main tests takes place in the winter, she uses the 'coldest room with minimal sunlight' for mock tests to get out of her comfort zone and experience a cold and hostile environment. Make a choice. They tried on three different jackets for him and chose the one that was the most comfortable. He said: 'I had heard of candidates having trouble writing because of their ill-fitting, heavy jackets. So it was important to do all this to give my best.

All this became a shared experience for his family as well. Gamini Singla's parents also joined in enthusiastically. Both are government doctors. She says her father reads at least three newspapers a day and 'newspapers are 80 per cent of your preparation for exams. He used to highlight important news to get up to speed on his daughter's current situation. His brother helped him in mock tests. His grandparents prayed for success.

No effort has been spared to ensure that there is no disruption in the preparation of Gamini. When construction on the two buildings in front of their house disturbed the sunlight and blocked the sunlight, the family built a lamp on their roof to create a quieter and better-lit place for them to study. Dropped the room.

To protect her from curious relatives who wondered why her daughter was absent from family events, her parents also 'ceased socializing and avoided family invitations so that I could isolate myself,' she said. Don't feel it.'

"They are part of my journey," says Gamini. They continued on the same path. This [examination] is a family effort.'

Singla belongs to India's privileged middle class, which faces fewer obstacles to its dreams of joining the bureaucracy. But these exams have also created a way for students from disadvantaged backgrounds to rise to the top. Frank Rosson Pereira, producer of a popular current affairs show on state TV, says his family sells land and jewelery to send their children to coaching schools in big cities. His show became very popular among civil service aspirants.

Perera says most of today's candidates come from small towns and villages in India. He spoke to a young civil servant who was the son of a manual scavenger. He cleaned human and animal waste with buckets or pits. This is a job mostly done by lower caste people. This young man studied at home and passed the exam. Even joined the prestigious Foreign Service.

"I know candidates who have prepared for these exams for 16 years and failed more than a dozen times," says Perera. Some backward castes can sit the exam as many times as they want. Candidates can take the exam for the first time at the age of 21 years.)

Gamini Singla says that becoming a civil servant gives her the best opportunity to 'make a real difference and impact many lives' in a vast and complex country. He has written a book on what it takes to 'pass the toughest exam in the world'. It has chapters on 'how to make sacrifices', and 'how to deal with tragedies that are beyond your control' and 'how to handle pressure from your family', among other things.

Gamini Singla told me that she sometimes thinks she may have forgotten 'how to relax'. She is now able to relax a bit as she is now training and traveling the country in preparation for her first appointment in the districts.

"Life will get busy after that," she says. And once again it will be difficult to relax.