An IIT Bombay graduate in Civil Engineering sitting down to study medieval Indian history for hours every day sounds like an odd picture.

An electronics engineer from Bhopal picks Sociology as her optional subject. She sits for UPSC twice. In her second attempt, she lands All India Rank 2

An IIT Bombay Civil Engineering graduate. Three attempts. Anthropology as an optional subject. And an interview score of 182 out of 275, one of the highest recorded in recent UPSC history.

A Computer Science engineer with a JP Morgan offer in hand chose Sociology and civil services instead. She was 22 years old.

One year, she could not clear the CSAT. The very next attempt, she secured All India Rank 4 in one of the world’s toughest examinations.

Her grandfather envisioned her as a civil servant before she had even finished school. Her father farms land in Mahabubnagar, Telangana.

She failed to clear UPSC Prelims in her first attempt. Then she failed again in her second. Two attempts, two Prelims failures, zero Mains appearances.

His teachers in Odisha had saved his father’s phone number as “Animesh IAS” years before he ever appeared for the exam. His father, a Political Science lecturer,

What does it take to top India’s hardest exam at 22, in your very first attempt, as the first Dalit woman in history to ever do so? For Tina Dabi,