From a Farmer’s Daughter to IAS Officer: The Quiet Journey of Priya Rani

Who is she? There’s this girl named Priya Rani. Ordinary name, but her story hits different. She’s a farmer’s daughter from a small village in Bihar who somehow became an IAS officer. Not the dramatic movie kind of story—just steady, stubborn, and real. Rank 69 in UPSC 2023, Bihar cadre, 2024 batch. Right now she’s the SDM of Sasaram in Rohtas. That’s her. Early life and education She was born on 1 August 1994 in Kurkuri village, Phulwari Sharif, near Patna. Father Abhay Kumar tills the land, mother stays at home. In that village a lot of people thought girls studying too much was unnecessary. They would say things, try to pull her back. Her grandfather, Surendra Prasad Sharma, wasn’t having it. He basically told everyone to mind their business and made sure she got proper schooling in Patna. Primary school at Don Bosco, Class 12 from St. Michael’s. Then she went to BIT Mesra in Ranchi and finished B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 2018. After that she landed a good software job in Bengaluru—Oracle, the kind of place where the salary looks nice on paper. But after some time she felt empty. Money was coming, future looked sorted, yet something inside kept saying this isn’t it. So she quit. Family was upset at first, obviously. Leaving a stable job for UPSC is scary when your background is modest. She still did it, moved to Delhi, prepared hard. She gave the exam four times. In 2021 she got rank 284 and joined IDES. That was already a big thing, but she wanted IAS. Kept going. Fourth attempt, 2023, rank 69. Optional was Economics. She scored decent marks—807 written, 193 in interview. Total thousand. Mostly self-study, NCERTs, newspapers, previous papers. No big coaching drama. Biography table Family table Family is simple. No big connections, just a farming household that somehow managed to support a daughter who refused to settle. Personal life She keeps things quiet. Likes reading books on economics and self-improvement, cooks Magadhi food, goes for morning walks with her father, writes poems sometimes. When the rank 69 result came, her father video-called her and cried. She still talks about those tears like they meant more than the rank itself. No public talk about marriage or anything personal like that. She just focuses on work—listening to people properly, making sure schemes actually reach them, keeping things transparent. FAQs Q.How many attempts? Four. Cleared twice. Q.Did she really leave a high-paying job? Yes. Straight up quit and started preparing. Q.What was the hardest part? Village people trying to stop her from studying when she was a kid, and later her own family worrying when she left the job. Q.Where is she now? SDM of Sasaram. Q.Any advice she gives? Keep it consistent. Don’t get carried away by coaching hype. Basic books done properly and previous papers analysed carefully go a long way. And don’t let one bad attempt finish you. That’s Priya Rani. Not some perfect hero. Just a girl from a farming family who kept walking even when people said stop. Quiet, determined, and still doing the work. Publisher By – Rohit Manral  Written By- Anjali Pandey 

Tina Dabi – That Girl Who Topped UPSC at 22

Tina Dabi – That Girl Who Topped UPSC at 22 The IAS officer who suddenly became famous in 2015. She was only 22 when she got Rank 1 in the Civil Services Exam on her very first attempt. First woman from the Scheduled Caste community to top it. That itself made people sit up and notice. She’s from the 2016 batch and works in Rajasthan cadre. Over the years she’s been Collector in a few places, including Barmer, and did some solid work on water conservation too. Who is she? Tina was born on 9 November 1993 in Bhopal. When she was in class 7 the family moved to Delhi. Her father Jaswant Dabi was a senior guy in BSNL. Her mother Himani (people also call her Himali) was an IES officer. Mum actually left her job so she could be around full-time while the girls studied. That mattered a lot. Tina has a younger sister Ria, who later also cleared UPSC and became an IAS officer. Early life and education She studied first at Carmel Convent in Bhopal, then Convent of Jesus and Mary in Delhi. In class 12 she scored full 100 in Political Science and History. After school she joined Lady Shri Ram College for a BA in Political Science. She has said she first thought of doing B.Com, but Political Science felt more right for what she wanted. From the first year of college itself she started preparing for UPSC. While everyone else was busy with college life, she was reading newspapers every day and putting in steady hours. In 2015 she wrote the exam and topped it with 1063 marks.   Biography table Family table Personal life During training she got close to Athar Aamir Khan (he was Rank 2 the same year). They got married in 2018. It didn’t work out and they divorced in 2021 by mutual consent. In 2022 she married Pradeep Gawande, another IAS officer from Rajasthan. They have a son now. These days she keeps her personal life quite private and stays away from social media mostly. FAQs people usually ask Q.How did she prepare? Started early, stayed consistent, read newspapers daily, and had full family support. No magic formula. Q.Did she take reservation benefit? She is from SC category, but her marks put her right at the top of the list. The reservation debate was mostly media noise. Q.What is she doing now? Still in Rajasthan cadre, has handled important district postings. Q.Who does she thank the most? Her mother. Tina has said clearly that mum leaving her career so the daughters could study without stress made all the difference. A girl from a service family who decided early what she wanted, worked steadily for it, and delivered when it mattered. Nothing over-the-top, just clear focus and strong support at home. Published By – Rohit Manral Written By – Anjali Pandey 

From a Small Town in Kannauj to the IPS Uniform – Bushra Bano’s Story

Who is she? Just a girl from Saurikh in Kannauj who somehow kept going when most people would have stopped. Bushra Bano is a 2021-batch IPS officer of the West Bengal cadre. Mother of two, PhD holder, once an assistant professor drawing a solid salary in Saudi Arabia. She cleared UPSC twice while managing kids, surgeries and all the usual “ab mat karo” comments that come a woman’s way. That’s her in short. Early life and education She was born in Saurikh (some call it Sork Qaswa) in Kannauj district. Father Mohammad Arshad Hussain worked hard, mother Shama Bano looked after the house. From very small, people at home noticed she was different. At four and a half she was already put in Class 2 because she had picked up so much at home. She studied in the local schools – Nehru Nursery, Saraswati Montessori, Rishi Bhoomi – and stayed at the top every year. After Class 12 she went to Kanpur for B.Sc. Mathematics. Finished MBA before she even turned twenty. Then joined Aligarh Muslim University for PhD in Management (Human Resource side). Cleared NET-JRF in the first attempt and finished the doctorate in a little over two years. While still researching she used to teach at institutes in Agra. Studying was never a side thing for Biography table Family table Personal life Marriage took her to Saudi Arabia. Husband was teaching at Jazan University and she also got a job there as assistant professor. Good money, settled life. Still the old civil services dream kept coming back. In 2016 both of them left that comfortable life and returned to India so she could prepare properly. By then she was already a mother. Two kids, both caesarean, plus two more major surgeries later. Body took a beating. Relatives and neighbours said the usual things – two children, enough now, settle down. She heard it all and kept studying. In 2018 she cleared UPSC with rank 277 while heavily pregnant with the second child. Even went for the interview in the last stage of pregnancy. Got Indian Railway Traffic Service but couldn’t join because of the baby. Same year she also cleared UPPCS with a good rank and joined as SDM in Firozabad. Still not done. Appeared again, got rank 234 in 2020 and finally the IPS she always wanted. Husband had already left his Saudi job years earlier so the family could stay together. That kind of support is rare and she has spoken about it openly.   FAQs Is she really a mother of two who cleared UPSC twice? Rank 277 in 2018 and rank 234 in 2020 while raising two small children. Did she leave a high-paying job abroad? Both she and her husband left teaching positions in Saudi Arabia and came back so shecould focus on the exam. What is her educational background? B.Sc. Mathematics, MBA before twenty, PhD from AMU, NET-JRF. Which cadre? West Bengal, 2021 batch IPS. How did she manage everything? Early mornings, late nights, strong support from her husband, and a simple refusal to treatmotherhood as a full stop. Bushra’s story is not some dramatic overnight thing. It’s a girl who started school early, kept topping, got married, moved countries, became a mother, faced surgeries, heard all the discouraging talk, and still showed up for the exam again and again until the uniform fitted. Today she is an IPS officer. The fields of Kannauj are far behind, but that same quiet stubbornness is still what carries her. @Rohit Manral

From Taunts to Pride: How IPS Mohita Sharma Turned Pain into Purpose and Won ₹1 Crore on KBC

Mohita Sharma’s is an IPS officer now, serving in Jammu and Kashmir. But her journey didn’t start with the uniform or the stars on the shoulders. Born into a simple middle-class family with roots in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, Mohita grew up as the only child. Her father worked in a factory, her mother looked after the home. Money was never plenty, yet somehow her parents managed to send her to Delhi Public School in Dwarka and later to Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering for her B.Tech. Being the only daughter came with its own unwanted comments. Relatives and neighbours would say the usual things every Indian parent of a girl child has heard. Those words stuck with Mohita. She’s said in interviews that she decided early on she wouldn’t stay the reason for those taunts. She wanted to become the reason her parents could hold their heads high. That quiet resolve pushed her towards the civil services. After graduation she joined the Election Commission of India as an Assistant Section Officer. While doing a regular government job, she started preparing for the UPSC. It wasn’t smooth. She failed four times. Four full attempts, each one ending in disappointment. Most people would have given up by the second or third try. Society already expects women in their late twenties to focus on marriage and settle down. Mohita kept going. In her fifth attempt in 2016 she finally cracked it. All India Rank 262. She was allotted the Indian Police Service and joined the 2017 batch. Geography was her optional. She had taken coaching at Vajiram & Ravi while balancing her job. The years of struggle had taught her a kind of discipline no classroom could fully give. Once she became an IPS officer she was posted in the AGMUT cadre and has served in Jammu and Kashmir. She’s handled tough responsibilities, including law-and-order situations in sensitive areas. In one widely reported case she led the team that arrested the mastermind behind a terrorist attack on pilgrims in Reasi district. That’s the kind of work that rarely makes it into motivational posters, yet it defines real service. Then came an unexpected chapter that brought her national attention in a completely different way. In 2020 she appeared on Kaun Banega Crorepati Season 12. Interestingly, it wasn’t even her own long-held dream. Her husband, IFS officer Rushal Garg, had been trying to get on the show for nearly twenty years. He encouraged her to register. She got through Fastest Finger First and found herself sitting opposite Amitabh Bachchan. She played with calm confidence and eventually answered the ₹1 crore question correctly. The question was about which explosive was first patented in 1898 by a German chemist and used in World War II. The options were HMX, RDX, TNT and PETN. She used the expert lifeline and locked RDX. When Bachchan announced “Ek crore,” she said she had goosebumps. She later shared that she wasn’t on the show primarily for the money. It felt more like completing a long-pending family dream. She became the second crorepati of that season and the first female IPS officer to win that amount on the show. After the win she even joked on social media about finding two Maggi masala sachets in one packet, calling it extra luck from the universe. What makes Mohita’s story land so well is how ordinary the beginning was and how steady the climb remained. No overnight success, no viral shortcuts. Just repeated failures, a government job, late-night study sessions, and a clear personal reason that kept her moving. She’s spoken about wanting young girls to stop being seen as lesser. Her own life has become quiet proof that the taunts can be turned into fuel. Today she continues to serve as a senior police officer. The uniform sits easily on her, the name plate reading Mohita Sharma, the responsibility still heavy. The ₹1 crore win is a nice chapter, but it isn’t the main plot. The main plot remains the decision she made years earlier: she would not be the reason for anyone’s taunts. She would be the reason her parents felt pride. In a country full of UPSC aspirants who give up after two or three attempts, her five-attempt journey still travels quietly from one WhatsApp forward to another. It’s not flashy. It’s simply honest. And that’s why it continues to matter. Sources: Odisha TV, Times Now, India Today, The Indian Express, Navbharat Times, Live Hindustan, IPS Biography profiles, and multiple interviews given by Mohita Sharma around her KBC win and UPSC journey. @Rohit Manral

From a Sleepy Village to IAS – Surabhi Gautam’s Story

From a Sleepy Village to IAS – Surabhi Gautam’s Story You know those stories that make you stop and think, if she could do it from there, what’s stopping me? Surabhi Gautam’s journey is exactly that. Who is Surabhi Gautam? She comes from Amdara, a small village in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh. Barely a thousand people lived there when she was growing up. Born in the rainy month of August into a big joint family of more than thirty members. Only her parents were happy that day. For the rest of the family it was just another ordinary birth. Her father was a lawyer in the Maihar civil court. Hermother, Dr. Sushila Gautam, taught in the local higher secondary school. They didn’t have much, but they believed in education. School was the government Hindi-medium school in the village. No fancy buildings, books often came late, and many nights she studied by the light of a lantern because electricity was never reliable. Still she was sharp. In class 5 she scored full marks in maths and the teacher told her she was special. That stayed with her. In class 10 she got 93.4 percent with perfect 100s inMaths and Science. Her name came in the state merit list. Around that time a local newspaperasked her what she wanted to become. She said “Collector.” The dream started there. Early life and Education: Class 12 was tough. She got rheumatic fever and had to travel 150 kilometres to Jabalpur every fifteen days for injections. Even then she scored well, got the Abdul Kalam scholarship, and cleared the state engineering entrance. She went to Bhopal for Electronics and Communication Engineering.  College was a shock. Hindi-medium background meant her English was weak. On the first day they asked her to introduce herself and explain something in physics. People laughed. She felt small. But instead of giving up she started learning ten new English words every day. Stuck notes on the walls, forced herself to read and speak. By the end of the first semester she had topped the university and got the gold medal. She finished as a gold medalist. After college she worked for a year as a nuclear scientist at BARC. She cleared so many exams – GATE, ISRO, SAIL, MPPSC, SSC, Delhi Police, FCI. In 2013 she topped the Indian Engineering Services with All India Rank 1. She could have settled into a comfortable life, but the dream of becoming a collector was still there. In 2016 she wrote the UPSC Civil Services exam for the first time and got All India Rank 50. Gujarat cadre, 2017 batch. No coaching, pure self-study. She chose Electrical Engineering as optional.  Here’s a quick look at her basic details:  And her family: Her Personal life: She keeps her personal life quiet. Work comes first. When she went back to the village as an IAS officer the same people who barely noticed her birth welcomed her with garlands and slogans – “Gaon ki beti kaisi ho? Surabhi Gautam jaisi ho!” She still talks about wanting better electricity, better medical facilities, and more chances for girls in places like her village. That quiet fire is still there. Some common questions people ask: Did she really struggle with English? Yes. They mocked her in college. She turned it around by learning ten words a day and wrote the UPSC papers in English. @Rohit Manral FAQs: How many attempts for UPSC? Only one. Rank 50 in the first try. Did she clear other exams? Yes – lots of them, including AIR 1 in IES. Any coaching? None. Just school, self-study and her parents’ support. What keeps her going? The memory of studying under a lantern and the wish that other village kids get better chancesthan she had. Surabhi’s story is not about magic. It’s about showing up every day when people laugh, when the lights go out, when your own body fights you. From a girl whose birth almost went unnoticed to an IAS officer who makes her whole village proud – she simply refused to stay small. And that is why her journey still lights a fire in so many others.