DREAMER TO ACHIEVER

Rural India is not dearth of talent. A strong drive to achieve puts you on higher pedestal and treads a path to success. It is immaterial where you are born with a social and economic condition you have inherited. What matters is the quantum of fire in your belly.

Some people perish in the course of their struggle and only few will rise to dictate their destiny.

Dodde Anjaneyulu belongs to the second lot. This pride of Andhra achieved his father's dream of becoming IAS in  2010 Civil Service Examination (CSE)  and got 278th rank. His father who was a watchman in a sleepy village: Jammikunta in backward Telangana region  inspired his son to become Collector and the son took his father's dream to heart, despite abject poverty.

Anjaneyulu through arduous efforts shined in academics and thereafter completed his engineering graduation in 2005. He settled as a software professional for 2 years to accumulate the needy bucks  for the Civil Services Exam preparation. Though the sudden death of his father in 2007 somewhat crippled him, but it solidified his resolve to embark his goal.

Getting selected to IAS is no mean achievement. Every year, around 4 lac aspirants compete the CSE out of which only ten thousand aspirants clear their preliminaries and very creamy few i.e. 1000 finally gets selected for IAS, IFS, IPS and other allied Group A & B Services. So it is all merit and hard work that matters. Anjaneyulu through this covetous achievement, once again proved to the world that a fire in the belly do wonders.

After reading his story in a local Telugu paper Saakshi dated 19 Nov 2011,  I was totally moved. The way his mother broke down after seeing her son’s achievement would strike a chord with any reader. It is palpable to understand the emotions of a mother who wept out of ecstasy, but felt sorry because her husband was no more to see their son's grand achievement. It is a soul-stirring story I ever read in my life.

After reading about Anjaneyulu, I could not resist without congratulating him. But how? That question haunted me for a while. Had it been 20 years earlier, I might have crushed my desire. But the Information Age prompted me to find ways. So I jumped into action and searched for his email ID in the Google. Being an internet buff, it was not a difficult task and I managed to get his Facebook link through which I got his e-mail ID. Immediately, I sent an email congratulating him for his achievement. It was so exhilarating that he not only acknowledged my mail quickly but spoke to me over phone with a full of gratitude and humility.

I read somewhere that the great tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us (talent) while we still  live. Anjaneyulu deeply engraved his father's dream to become IAS by which he not only proved a darling child to his parents, but a shining star to the millions of aspirants.