Second wave, alone in Delhi: Maharashtra youth triumphs odds to crack civil services

Covid19 almost shattered his dream making him so weak he thought he wouldnrsquot survive On Saturday a day after he cracked the civil services Aditya Jiwane said thank you ndash to his parents for making him think big and to bureaucrats from his home state Maharashtra who handheld him through multiple crises in a new cityJiwane 25 was ranked 399 in the civil services results announced on Friday He is confident he will find a place in the elite Indian Administrative Service and also triumphant that he had overcome many oddsldquoCivil services is the dreams my parents saw for merdquo Jiwane a mechanical engineer from Yashwantrao College of Engineering Nagpur told PTIldquoAs I grew their dreams became minerdquo added the son of teacher parents While his father lectures in a local college in Warora in Chandrapur his mother teaches in a zilla parishad school thereThat dream almost didnrsquot happen he saidIt was April the second wave was raging through the national capital and Jiwane who had decided to to move to Delhi in January for his Mains exam in January after appearing for his Prelims in Nagpur was aloneJiwane who had made two unsuccessful attempts at the exams was preparing for the interview mdash the last step in the gruelling threestage examination process of one of the mostsought after exams in the country mdash when he too was struck by Covid19Hospitals were overwhelmed and Jiwane was one of the many struggling to find a bed in a city where the health infrastructure had been crippled by the high number of cases His high resolution CT HRCT score of the chest was 18 indicating that the situation was indeed perilousHe was alone with high fever in his room in Mukherjee Nagar mdash the civil services hub in northwest Delhi mdash and thought he wouldnrsquot make it for the interview then scheduled in MayAlso ReadIITBombay graduate tops UPSC examJiwane said he somehow managed an oxygen cylinder for himself That started emptying rapidly and he knew he needed hospitalisation But that was easier said than doneHe then sent an SOS message on different WhatsApp groups Civil servants from his state posted in different parts of the country spotted the message and chipped inldquoHis condition was really critical We got in touch with his parents and other officers posted in Delhi so that he can get immediate help His parents also had to be comforted as they were really worriedrdquo said Deputy Commissioner Customs Nitish Pathode an Indian Revenue Service officer currently posted at the Mumbai airportldquoWe could manage a bed but then it was without an oxygenrdquo Pathode told PTISwagat Patil a DANIPS Delhi Andaman and Nicobar Islands Lakshadweep Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu Police Service officer and an assistant commissioner with Delhi Police helped him get a bed in BurariOn April 24 Jiwane was admitted in hospitalldquoHis accommodation in Mukherjee Nagar was on the first floor But due to this deteriorating condition it took him nearly 30 minutes to come to the ground floorrdquo Patil saidAnand Patil an IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre too pitched in with logisticsldquoHe continued to remain critical even after hospitalisationrdquo Pathode saidHe was discharged on April 30 Luckily for him UPSC postponed the interview scheduled for May 11 till AugustThings soon began to fall into place Though Covid19 had extracted a huge toll Jiwane resumed his preparations by June endA total of 761 candidates 545 men and 216 women have cleared the test conducted annually to select the countrys bureaucrats diplomats and police officers among other civil servantsldquoAfter what Jiwane endured it was his positivity that helped him recover and achieve his goalrdquo Patil saidldquoIn the end all the efforts taken seem to be worth itrdquo Jiwane added happy and relieved it was finally overThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever