In a coaching class in Old Rajinder Nagar in the OTT series Aspirants, a teacher, once an IAS aspirant himself, sums up two ways of changing the country. One is from the bottom — as a labourer, a farmer, through activism. The other, he says, is from the top, by becoming an IAS, IPS or IRS officer.
There are no prizes for guessing which way most people would want to take to change the country – and their circumstances. So Abhilash Sharma from Aspirants, a series which started streaming on Prime Video in 2021 and got a second season last October, and Manoj Kumar Sharma from the film 12th Fail (2023), a “Hindi medium type” from the badlands of Chambal who makes Delhi’s other coaching hub, Mukherjee Nagar, his home, give it their all to succeed at the civil services examination. The two entertainers chronicle the grit and determination of such aspirants, putting the lens on this obsessive world of studies and revisions, coaching classes, and the quest to crack competitive exams.
The UPSC (Union Public Service Commission), as it came to be known after India adopted its Constitution in 1950, conducts examinations for recruitment of officers to the All India Services and the Central Civil Services. A legacy of the British Raj, the prestige and the sheen of the civil services, the competitive examinations for which started in 1855 and were earlier held only in London, has remained intact over the centuries. If anything, the on-screen depiction has only burnished the civil services’ halo.
At present, over one million candidates compete for around just a thousand seats in the civil services, ensuring more heartbreaks than high fives. Through the cinematic journey of these aspirants, we see what being a bureaucrat means to a large section of India that wants to claw its way out of a system so arranged against it that it wants to become a part of it. The character of Manoj in 12th Fail, played by actor Vikrant Massey, who won several accolades for it, in fact, is inspired by a real-life IPS officer.
Meanwhile, in Aspirants, as the camera pans over the congested streets of Old Rajinder Nagar in Delhi, you know you are in the “Mecca of UPSC”. The coaching institutes, around which spin the world of civil service aspirants, the book-lined shops, the conversations over prelims, mains, number of attempts, and the advice that comes free with the chai, capture an ecosystem that swings madly between hope and disappointment.
The vibe is right and the screen stories, helped by nuanced acting, manage to chronicle the struggles, friendships, triumphs and failures of the students, but what they don’t really convey is the crushing weight of expectations and what pressure can do to these aspirants. Issues such as dangerous infrastructure, high fees and quality of services offered by coaching centres, all of which have come to light after the tragic death of three civil services aspirants who drowned in an illegal basement in Old Rajinder Nagar on July 27, never take centre stage.
The genial teacher, that one “bhaiyya” who is on his last exam attempt but is always ready to help others, blunt the toxic environment, both physical and mental, that students often endure. The darkness that accompanies a system where the winner takes all doesn’t ever pierce the nostalgia-cloaked world of classes, friendships and crammed PG digs.
And there can be so much darkness in a race where there is not much space on the podium. As a character in 12th Fail tells another, “Of the two lakh Hindi medium aspirants, only 25 to 30 become IAS or IPS. For the rest, it’s back to zero and then re-start.”
Back in Old Rajinder Nagar, the once-aspirant, now-teacher, tells his class, “Here you will see countless stories of hopes and disappointments. Some stories started and ended here. But some stories made history.”
It is perhaps in the nature of motivational stories and films that we forget the characters whose dreams fell by the side and remember — and are inspired by — the ones who made history. The aspirant who got through in the last attempt, the one who made it despite all odds. For the rest who didn’t make it, there is always the restart button. But for Old Rajinder Nagar, their story started and ended here.
devyani.onial@expressindia.com
Rescue operations underway after flooding in the basement of Rau's IAS Study Circle in Delhi's Rajendra Nagar (Express Photo by Gajendra Yadav) 
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