Bharat is one of those rare individuals who cleared the UPSC on the first attempt, and that too with an all-India rank of 17, which, incidentally, is the highest rank in Andhra Pradesh. Well, he has been studying for it since he was an undergrad student in a med school. “While I was in medical school, I did not have much time to study. At the most, I would spend one hour a day with the study materials. Once I completed the medical school, I had more time. I would work as a doctor during the day, and spend around seven hours of the remaining time studying. Eventually, I gave up practicing medicine, and decided to dedicate all my time to preparing for the UPSC,” explains Bharat.
Optionals
The optional subjects are a big decision to make when it comes to taking the UPSC. For Bharat the choices were obvious. “I chose public administration and anthropology. Public administration because I knew that the knowledge I would gain studying the subject would help me in my new role as an administrator. And 25 percent of anthropology was already what I had studied in medicine, so I knew that I would have an edge over others in this subject. It was an obvious choice.”
Books
“Many of my seniors told me that I should stick to only the standard set of books, but I disagreed. I wanted to broaden my horizons so I decided to study from as many books as I could get my hands on. For general studies the manual that I perused was Tata McGraw-Hill. For history, Agnihotri and Krishna Reddy. For geography I picked up Khullar, for politics I chose D D Basu and for economics it was Dutt and Sundaram. I referred to a lot more books when it came to my two optionals - public admin and anthropology. For public admin I referred to Fadia & Fadia, Laxmikanth, Nicholas Henry, VajiRam & Ravi and a few others. For anthropology I read several books by Nadeem Hasnain, which I found exceedingly helpful,” elaborates Bharat, “But now that I have gotten through I don’t think I’ll be reading too many books now!” he adds.
IAS or IPS?
Bharat is pretty clear about his choice of service. “Medicine is a profession with the maximum human interaction. With my medical background, I knew I would be better suited for the IAS. In fact, if I had not gotten through to the IAS this time around, I would have taken the exams again.”
Childhood dream
The Indian Administrative Service wasn’t the first thing Bharat wanted to be. His childhood aspiration lay a little higher - with the stars! “As a child I was fascinated with missiles. I wanted to be a Rocket Engineer!”
Timepass
With so much time spent studying, how does one relieve the stress? For Bharat, it was music, movies and girls! “Music keeps me going. I love listening to contemporary Telugu movie songs. I especially love romantic soulful songs. Which is why I love Devi Sree Prasad. I also love watching movies. I don’t care if it is a bad movie or a good movie, I would still watch it. And I don’t have a girlfriend. So when I have time, I like driving my bike around Hyderabad, and scouting for pretty girls!”
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