Why I became a Civil Servant?

This article by cosmic voices has prompted me to write my answer to “Why I became a civil servant?” The reasons are very much the same as mentioned there but I could not resist imparting my wisdom on this vital subject.

There are questions like what is truth, what is morality, what is right. And then there is Dholpur House’s (UPSC Office) variant of these, “Why you want to become a civil servant?” Somehow I could escape/fool/convince board members about my reason there and now I can calmly blog the truth.

My answer is, I had nothing else to do.

Not convinced, OK, I shall elaborate. I come from middle, middle class and my parents are in government service. I knew what they knew, what the township in which we lived knew. My license to success in this world was education. And what is the biggest success one can achieve through education. You got it right, civil services. I wanted the biggest TV, smartest car, largest house, the most beautiful girl in the town, and along with all of them, the best job.

Some of you might not be very happy about my platonic reasons. Till now I have given reasons that came in my adolescence. Where was the zeal to do something for the country, where was the motivation from inside to do what I really wanted to do, where were the ‘more mature’ reasons. I shall give them too.

I hated the slow way in which the clerk in a government office did his work. I could never forget the nurse in the government hospital that misbehaved with the patients. I turned my eyes from the horde of beggars on the traffic signal as if they do not even exist. And then, adrenalin gushed in me too when I watched Rang De Basanti.

After all such incidents, I heard a voice inside me, do something about it. The answer available was, become a civil servant. In fact as I grew, I could satisfy all my ambitions by dreaming to become a civil servant. I wanted to have a social status, a secure future and a challenging work. I also wanted to make my parents feel proud. Whenever I had an ambition, I asked myself, “Will it be satisfied if I became a civil servant?” The answer was always yes.

As I grew, it became an obsession and I had to achieve it. No other service could have offered me even half of these. The bug of becoming an IAS entered in the childhood and I had no escape.

The reasons may sound selfish, but in my philosophy of life, everything has to be done in one’s own self interest. I help somebody not because of my kindness, but because I feel good after that. I would like to work for my country not because one should work for his country, but because ‘I’ shall feel happy after doing that. I never believed or unfortunately could not have any 'benevolent' reasons.

I do not know if what I was able to state the truth, or if I even know the truth. That is why I said, this question is a variant of all those philosophical questions which do have ‘right’ answers. Everyone has to seek his/her own definitions. I even doubt if UPSC members are really serious when they ask “Why you want to become a civil servant?”

When all my ‘selfish’ goals are satisfied in this service, and I knew no other alternatives, tell me am I not correct when I say, I had nothing else to do!