Stirring tales of unforgettable interviews

By Maninder Singh

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The interviews for those passing the written examinations, conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, for the All India Services and the Central and Allied Services, take place in the serene and stately environs of Dholpur House on Shahjahan Road in New Delhi.

Entering that august building is a marker of great personal significance. It implies that you have cleared one of the most challenging exams in the universe and, if luck, chance and destiny do not peter out like the tail-end of a cricket team, you are in with a chance to serve in some of the most storied services in India.

There are stirring tales about the interviews and, indeed, those conducting them. One of the members heading one of the boards was a “paan” chewing gentleman from Lucknow. Even in the course of the interview, the chewing was never abandoned, with the inevitable result that the questions that were asked were somewhat indistinct.  If you happened to say, “Excuse me, Sir”, he would not like it and, sometimes, even lose his temper. Facing him on the board could easily be a recipe for fatal disaster.

Facing the Board

There were fortunate candidates who had scored so well in the “writtens” that the interview hardly counted.  One of the brilliant officers from the 1978 batch, Harsh Mahan Cairae, stood his valiant ground, amidst intense questioning, about some rather difficult and debatable issues, which were susceptible to varying interpretations. He was given only 15 marks out of 300 and still made it to the IAS, having done exceedingly well in the written examinations.

There was the story one always heard, and God alone knows, if it is true, about a candidate tripping and toppling down upon entry, first the head and then the heels over the head, as a result of uncontrollable nervousness, after knocking down a flower pot. Upon getting up, in a last-ditch desperate measure and summoning up flagging reserves of courage, he spoke up eloquently and with measured aplomb, “Sirs, I am glad that I have fallen in good company.”

Before appearing for the interview, many of us were in some wonderment whether we should address the five-six members of the Board as Sirs or, simply and solely, Sir. I checked up with the suave and soft spoken, Manbir Singh, a former member of the UPSC and a distinguished Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 1976 batch.  Though views differ, he said both forms are correct, although a lady member ought to be addressed separately. The Board would, surely, go more by the eventual content of a candidate’s responses, rather than mere form.

When a lady I knew well appeared for the interview, and having travelled much in what one might call “realms of gold and many goodly states and kingdoms seen”, she had strangely forgotten of a personage called George C. Marshall, who had formulated a plan for the reconstruction of post-war Europe, which was then called the Marshall Plan.

It’s Ok to not know all answers

Not knowing the answer to a question or two did not matter much, unless you attempted to exhibit shreds of knowledge, where none existed. Rajni Razdan, from the batch of 1973, also a UPSC member, who passed away last year, and so many of us who knew her miss her so very much, told me once about declining standards of general knowledge among many candidates. She had said that she was particularly struck by how some of them who appeared for the interview lacked knowledge of some rather common concepts.  

In keeping with the spirit of the bureaucracy, one was not supposed to react with hasty, ill-considered answers but, rather respond with more balanced and nuanced replies, having gathered in the multifarious aspects of a vexed issue.

In 1986, when one of my friends, went to Dholpur House for the interview, he was quizzed about Surjit Singh Barnala, who as Chief Minister of Punjab, had been summoned by the ‘Akal Takht’ to the Golden Temple and thereafter performed penance by dusting devotees’ shoes.

My friend had replied that although it might be questionable for a Chief Minister, working under the Constitution, to kowtow to the dictates of the ‘Akal Takht’, it was a sagacious move politically and had drawn the merry wind out of the sagging sails of his detractors.

For hundreds and thousands of us, who have walked through the pillars of Dholpur House, to the Central Hall to await the summoning of the Board, and faced the rigours of an interview, with such far-reaching ramifications for our lives and careers, it was an unforgettable experience. 

Even today, I never can cross Dholpur House without a tremor of trepidation, alarm, excitement and some sense of achievement, with a prayer and a blessing for those who are yet to enter the hallowed precincts.