How “SHE” Became an IAS Officer by Surabhi Gautam at TEDxRGPV (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of IAS officer Surabhi Gautam’s TEDx Talk: How “SHE” Became an IAS Officer at TEDxRGPV conference. An alumni of RGPV, Surabhi Gautam was born in an orthodox village of Madhya Pradesh. She recently cleared UPSC Civil Services Exam securing All India Rank 50.

Listen to the MP3 audio: How SHE became an IAS officer by Surabhi Gautam at TEDxRGPV

TRANSCRIPT: 

Namaste! Today as you see me as a package of success when my bio says that I have cleared the top prestigious exams and interviews of India. My friends, let me tell you not more about my successes but more about my rejections, my failures and my determination, my willpower that made me to get those successes.

So my story starts from a small sleepy village of Madhya Pradesh with a population of barely thousand people, on the month of rainy August, a small girl was born in an orthodox Brahmin family — a family that was giant and joint with 30 plus members – it was not an event for them. There was nothing that worth celebrating happened that day when I was born, only two souls on earth were happy. Obviously, they were my parents, and for rest of them it was a normal affair.

Twenty-five years down the line, same girl, same village and the whole family was welcoming her with garlands, BANG BANG slogans like ‘gaon ki beti kaisi ho, Surabhi Gautam jaisi ho’ and what not. What made things to become so different for her?

My dear friends, let me tell you how things changed not only for me but also for my parents, how all the perspectives got changed slowly, slowly, steadily, steadily.

I was in a joint family. In a joint family, you know nobody gets – no children – no child gets a separate attention. So we all were treated equally. Life was OK. We were happy. I got admission in my village school. That was Hindi medium – Madhya Pradesh Board School.

In 5^th class, something good happened with me that I remember till date. I got 100 out of 100 in my Mathematics paper. 5^th class was a Board class. So my teacher called me and she said, “See, I have never seen anybody scoring full marks, that in Mathematics, that in Board exam. You have done this. So I think you are going to do something good in studies.” That was the day when I felt appreciated and recognized and I had given this clear message to universe that in future all I’m going to do is to be a studious girl, because with studies comes recognition. With studies will come appreciation for me. Otherwise in this family I’m not going to get this at all.

So I started to focus more on studies. But my heart — it always wanted to diversify. I wanted to do everything. I started to try my hand at painting, sketching, drawing. I started to do embroidery also. I was busy with my, you know, village priest and all the pujas and all the Ramayana ayojans and everything. And I was not noticing the pain — the pain that was creeping in my body.

I started to feel the pain in my joints and my elbow and every joint of my body. And after sometime I was bedridden. My parents took this decision with their meagre resources to take me there. We went there at a place called Jabalpur. And the doctor said that your daughter has this rheumatic fever. What happens in this disease is – there are viruses always present in air. Now and then they attack the body of children and they create pain. And when it becomes serious, what happens — they attack your heart and they disturb the semilunar valve. And in some cases, it leads to death also.

It was a shock for them. But then they asked that “What can be the possible treatment?”