Cleared it!

And today he is the only IAS officer who cleared the examination by writing his papers in Bengali. Chakrabarty incidentally offered history and geography as his subjects in the Main examination.

But the gutsy officer did not do it just for the mere love of the language but to show the richness of his mother tongue.

“I won’t say I am very well read in Bengali literature but I took the challenge to show that Bengali is a rich language and if I write my papers in my mother tongue,I will be able to scrape through. In any case had I failed I would have taken the exam in English,’’ Chakrabarty who joined the service in 2006,said.

But he said he received immense support from his father Tapan Kumar Chakrabarty and some of his teachers at the IAS coaching institute at Presidency College headed by its former principal Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay.

“Even though many of my friends and relations disapproved of the idea,I got immense support from my father and my teachers at the coaching institute. My text books were of course in English but I had no problem. I just read the books thoroughly and grasped the subjects,of course with help of my teachers,and then wrote the answers in Bengali. It was a challenge and I overcame it successfully,’’ the young officer who stood first class first in textile technology,said.

After finishing his B. Tech,Chakrabarty joined a garment manufacturing concern.

“In 2002 the idea came to me that I should take the civil services examination. And I decided that I would take it in Bengali. This is not because,well I do not boast of anything,that my knowledge of English was that bad. But I thought I will have to do something novel because earlier people cleared IAS by offering Bengali as one of the subjects but nobody wrote the whole examination in Bengali. It was a challenge that I met with success,’’ the officer who had already snagged laurels from the government for his efficiency,said.

And the officer wants other Bengali youngmen to emulate his feat.

“I want more people should follow my example. They may be very good in English but they should take the exam in Bengali,’’ Chakrabarty,who is already married,said.

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