Craze for Civil Services in 60s

This is the story of my Class in 1964 .Looking at career options on school leaving.

To be a civil servant has been a goal for some youngsters and not so for hundreds and thousands for a long time.

In my school passing out class of 64 we were about 30 students.

Out of these 30 only two had cherished a desire to be civil servants.

The rest of the class had no interest and different ambitions.

The toppers in the class were very clear ideas about their career paths. They were keen on science and engineering. Most of them became engineers.

Students from defence forces family backgrounds were dead set on an army career. They all chose either the NDA route or an alternate one .One way or the other they ended up joining the armed forces. Their ambitions were fulfilled.

A handful was keen on medicine and all of them became doctors. Now they treat us. For free.

Some came from business families and they became entrepreneurs or joined family business or a new industry.

A few were the creative kind or interested in the education field . One or two joined the advertising world and some became teachers.

Only two of us were for civil services. We became civil servants.

That accounts for all 30. Thus one can see that even in 60s in India civil services was only one option and it was the least popular option

Since then many new avenues for exciting employment have opened up. Naturally youngsters are going that way and it’s a release for their talent and creativity.

And all of them are in the service of the nation as much and perhaps a little more than the civil servants. For nation building , growth and development in India it’s not at all necessary to be in the civil services.

So my advice: choose a career which best suits your mind set the best. But one has to work hard for achieving that goal.

And hard work combined with intelligence and smart thinking will always propel one towards achieving the set goals.

So just go out there and just do the thing you want to do. Each one of us contributes as much as the next guy.

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