Daring to make a hole in the sky if one throws a stone with full conviction, finds an unlikely echo in the life of Ankit Kumar, a young man from Bihar’s Saharsa district who has just secured the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in the 70th Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) examination.Kumar, who hails from a modest family, cleared the examination with a rank of 333 and now stands as a rare example of what self-directed preparation from a small village can achieve.
A decade of teaching by day, preparing by night
Kumar’s preparation did not take place inside a large city institute. It happened at a modest coaching centre he built himself in his village, one that also became the place where he taught other students for close to ten years while preparing for the examination on the side.“You can see that this is my coaching institute, built with dachi and palani. I stayed here and taught children for almost ten years, and while teaching, I prepared for the examination myself,” Kumar said.He described the years of preparation as relentless. “Every day brought a new challenge, and with every challenge, I made myself stronger.”
Money was the first obstacle
Kumar has been candid about the financial constraints that shaped his path. His father, he said, comes from a very poor family, and there was simply no money to enroll in large coaching institutes in the city.“It was quite challenging because my financial condition was very poor. My father comes from a very poor family, so he did not have enough money for me to study in big institutes,” he said.Left with no other option, Kumar turned to self-study. He studied the BPSC examination pattern closely, went through previous year question papers (PYQs), and built his own strategy at home, without any institutional support.
A message for students from villages
Kumar closed his account with a message directed squarely at students who, like him, are preparing from villages with limited means. He urged them to prepare with belief in themselves.“If you have the capacity for hard work, if you have patience, you can build a strategy. If you analyse the PYQs and you have a dream inside you, then even from a village, even from a hut, you can dream of becoming an officer and you can fulfil that dream,” he said. “I have fulfilled it and proven it.”
