00:00Too many of my cousins, too many of my friends have said to me the same thing, that because
00:05of you we got scolded and I'm very sorry to everybody.
00:30I don't know if there's any secret or any recipe for my success or my success.
01:00I think one thing that might have been important is that I think very carefully about whatever
01:05I'm doing before jumping into it, trying to understand what is my motivation, what are
01:11my strengths, what are my weaknesses and how I can contextualize everything to what is
01:15needed.
01:16But, I mean, there's also a fair component of luck and a lot of other things involved
01:21that I do not want to understate having done well in these exams.
01:30I'm a bit embarrassed to admit, but I was kind of consistently good in the schools as
01:34well.
01:35I mean, I was always very interested in academics.
01:41More marks gets you more opportunities.
01:43It gets you into better colleges and so on.
01:45But at the same time, as we move along, I've also noticed myself that the importance of
01:50marks has consistently declined.
01:52For instance, in college, I was hardly concerned about whether I was doing well or not.
01:56But the main priority was to develop a good friend circle, good social networks, take
02:01part in a lot of extracurricular activities that help you build your personality.
02:10I didn't give it as much time as some other candidates were lucky to invest in it.
02:15I mean, I also didn't prepare any notes.
02:19I didn't have any kind of study groups.
02:22I wasn't part of those environments just because of choice.
02:26My strategy was just to gobble up as much news as I could get, not be restricted to
02:32any newspaper, any magazine.
02:34It was very much focused around news, around current affairs.
02:42My target now, and I'm working actively towards it, is how to prepare myself to be able to
02:48do the most I can for development in public service.
02:51And that's where the real challenge lies.
02:54So I want to be a person of value, somebody who can make a difference.
02:58Not just somebody who succeeded in some exams, because again, lots of people do that, doesn't
03:02make a difference to India.
03:12This was actually true.
03:13I did go to the library a lot of times during my lunch break because I enjoyed it.
03:17This very well fits into the stereotype that was propounded around me.
03:21So again, it was very funny, but not true.
03:24Some of them also have gifted me, I don't know, I mean, framed memes or something.
03:30I have one on my desk.
03:31I can show you over here.
03:33It goes like this.
03:34It talks about Lifebuoy and how it doesn't even kill as many germs as my marks.
03:41So I thought it was very funny.
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