The rickshawallah's son who cracked the IAS

IAS is acronym for Indian Administrative Service. One of the top ranking government service in India.

The 2006 competitive examinations for India's civil services is notable for the number of young people from non privileged backgrounds who feature in the merit list. For the first time, none from India's elite metros feature in the top ten.

We will bring you some amazing success stories in this special series. Today, meet a rickshaw vendor's son from Varanasi who is one of the IAS toppers this year.

Tears ran down Govind Jaiswal's face and refused to stop. Staring him in the face was the only thing he had ever wanted, and now that he had achieved it, he couldn't even reach out for the keys on his cellphone.

He waited till the tears dried up, till the news sunk in and made that one phone call on which depended the hopes of his entire family.

Govind, 24, the son of an uneducated rickshaw vendor in Varanasi, had grown up with cruel taunts like 'However much you study, you will still be a rickshawpuller.' He had studied with cotton stuffed in his ears to drown the noise of printing machines and generators below his window in a poor neighbourhood where small workshops existed cheek by jowl with tiny residential quarters.

He had given Math tuitions to supplement the paltry sum his father could afford to send him each month. His ailing father had sold a small plot of land to give Govind about Rs 40,000 so that he could move to Delhi which would provide him a better place to study.

Throughout his life, he had lived with only one dream -- to become an officer of the Indian Administrative Service. For him that was the only way. And when he broke the news to his family, that he was ranked 48 among 474 successful candidates in his first attempt at the exam -- it was the turn of his three sisters and father to weep with unbridled joy.

Besides the Civil Services, I had no option

I could not afford to have any other career goal. My life would have been absolutely futile had I not made it into the civil services," says Govind, just back from his medicals in New Delhi, mandatory for the IAS.

"You must understand that my circumstances were such that besides the Civil Services, I had no option. I didn't have much of a chance with lower government jobs because they are mostly fixed, neither could I start a business because I had no money. The only thing I could do was work hard at my studies."

It was almost impossible for him to study in the one room he shared with his family. To add to his woes was the power cut that extended between 10 and 14 hours every day. The moment the lights went out, he had to shut the window to block out the deafening noise of generators in the many workshops around his home.

So in search for a quiet place to study, he briefly shared a friend's room at the Banaras Hindu University. Since that did not help him much, he did what many civil services aspirants in northern India do -- he moved to New Delhi.

"Beyond this year, my father could not have afforded to send Govind any more money. It was getting very tough for him. Govind was earning Rs 1,500 from tuitions, I don't know what he would have done if he didn't make it to the IAS this year. My father could not sleep for 10 days before the results came," says Govind's eldest sister Nirmala, whose son is almost the same age as her brother.

Now that he will earn Rs 8,000 as his starting salary during his two-year training period in Mussoorie for IAS, Govind says his first priority is getting good treatment for his father's wound.