UPSC Dreams on Screens

by Vikram Grewal.

This week has been a week of ‘aspirants’ and exam warriors as the ‘season of examination’ begins. It also marked two years since the UPSC Civil Services result of my own batch. On 5th April we had crossed the mental threshold from being aspirants to officer (trainees). The ‘war’ had been won (for the time being). On 7th April this week, The Viral Fever released its new web series ‘Aspirants’ on YouTube. It is a series presented by Unacademy revolving around the lives of UPSC Civil Services aspirants as the protagonist struggles with his continuous attempts to clear India’s ‘toughest examination.’ 

The series comes from the makers of Kota Factory a poignant depiction of IIT aspirants struggling in Kota, which released last year and will soon be coming back with a second season. Basically, the scene is set. The dreams of success that used to be sold on the big silver screen have now switched to the small screen. Aspirants is bound to be extremely popular as its audience includes an ocean of aspirational youth, their parents, their relatives, the younger children who have decided to pursue the examination as their dream. They will all find it relatable as the show follows a simple formula of three guy friends working towards the same goal concocted by the appealing mixture of love, motivation, relationships, unsolicited advice, regional stereotypes, constant reminder of competition and of course the clever placement of sponsors in dialogues and scenes. 

They will release one episode each week I presume and the beauty of it will lie in the way it will trivialize the process of preparation and promote the economy that thrives on the confusion of the candidates. It is a not-so-subtle testimony to the way in which the private sector through coaching institutes is repackaging the dreams of a young population that shifted its interest from the private sector back to the public sector lately. And making it reach you through your phone screens that tell you that you can achieve anything with ‘patience, perseverance and dedication’ provided that you ‘like, share and subscribe’ is a master-stroke. 

It almost seems like Civil Service is making a comeback on the screen soon. We have new on-screen civil servant characters. We have moved from Aamir Khan’s Sarfarosh, Ajay Devgn’s Gangajal and Abhay Deol’s Shanghai to Rajkummar Rao’s Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana, Fahad Fazil’s Take-Off, Ayushman Khurana’s Article 15, Ishwak Singh’s Paatal Lok and now Naveen Kasturia’s Aspirants. (We need more female representation on screen!) Perhaps biopics on civil servants will follow, or even adaptations of memoirs. We might have a 3 Idiots on UPSC soon. There is a content-hungry audience which repeatedly feels the need to vicariously live their dreams through these stories of ‘inspiration, redemption and achievement.’ No doubt they will be motivating and stress-busting but they will also be simultaneously presenting aspirants with a festooned package of their own commodified dreams. 

Honestly, it is not the private entities alone who are involved in selling dreams, we as officers glorify our own selves as magnanimous, honest, kind and perpetually concerned ‘messiahs’ of the society. We exhibit our noble deeds through all the social media channels- with a sneak peek of perks and power. And that’s commendable if things in reality are the same as the things on screen (and many times they are). Actually, it is ok even if that isn’t the case, you can say that civil servants are also private individuals; sharing work on social media is encouraging for them as well- just like in other professions. It all gets a little stranger when the ORN-ographers come into the picture. 

Coaching Institutes are very helpful (sometimes). They are service providers in a market economy, and thus they themselves are competitors. And therefore, it becomes indispensable for the aspirant to be a smart consumer in order to cut through this urban jungle resembling Old Rajinder Nagar (ORN). When aspirants realize that their dreams wrapped in a case of abstract and omnipresent elements of passion, hard work, devotion are being resold to them among several market players, that is when they would move towards the stuff that matters (a little more)- data, facts, critical analysis and rigorous practice. When they know that there is an economy of intermediaries which is built upon the fact that ‘there will always be aspirants,’ they would be able to decide better for themselves. 

The point I am trying to make is simple- the circus of civil services preparation is going to get crazier with the overload of content (and expectations). And there will always be a herd caught in the vicious cycle of ‘Pre…Mains…Aur Life.’ The industries at play and social media will make the most of your ‘screen time.’ It is up to the aspirants if they want to spend it focusing on the OMR sheet or keep waiting for Pitchers season 2 (like me).