My first interview at UPSC

Board Chairperson - Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Surinder Nath, former Chairman of the UPSC

After a wait of about 4 hours, my name was called.I went upstairs with the peon and he asked me to sit outside the room.Then an old gentleman came out of the room and asked the peon to send one more candidate before the lunch break, I assumed that was one of the board members.( that was the board chairperson) I nodded to him slightly (as good afternoon) and he shook his head furthermore slightly.

In the meantime, the peon ran to call the candidate upstairs.The candidate came and sat besides me. I said hello and since i was a bit nervous, to make sure that i perform well, I started talking to him about him and the recent telangana issue. Then the candidate who was inside came out, the sardarji, and I asked him how was it.(though his name wasn't there in the final list) He was overwhelmed and said "bahut achhe log hai n m bahut khush hu", that gave me further confidence.Then i said bye to them both and went inside the interview room.

(s-saurabh, m – upsc member, b1- board member1, lady- lady member, b3- board member 3)

S- may i come in sir,

M- yes yes please come in (I thought they would be arrogant and uninterested, being at that position, but they were not)

S- ( I stood besides the chair) good afternoon mam n sirs

lady member- please sit down

b1 (bengali may be) - u r shorab

s- no sir, Its Saurabh

b1- u mean shaurabh

s- no sir, SAURABH

b1- okay

m- so, saurabh you have done your graduation from delhi university, PGDAV. what is PGDAV?

s- sir, its my college. It is Pannalal Girdharilal Dayanand Anglo Vedic College.

m- so its a private college

s- no sir its under a trust.

m- so where is it situated

s- sir its in Nehru nagar. Near Lajpat nagar.

m- okay. So, u r from Delhi itself.

s- No Sir, I am from Haryana, but i have done graduation and my CA from delhi.

lady member- so, from where did you do your articleship?

s - mam i did it from Satish Tayal and associates. its in Delhi.

lady- what all did u do

s- mam, the firm was basically a taxation firm. so most of the work i did was related to taxation.

m - so u have completed your studies in 2011. what have you been doing since then since u r not working?

s- sir i have been preparing for civil services since then.

m- okay, so how many attempts have you taken till now.

s- sir, i have written mains this time and this is my second attempt.

m- what was your subject

s- sir, commerce.

m- is there any change in the syllabus of gs dis time?

s- sir, actually there has been no change, its only that the syllabus has been made more elaborates

m- but some students are cribbing about the change

s- sir actually the weightage of gs has increased and that of subjects have reduced. Since, subjects are quite static and gs is very dynamic, those who have crammed their subjects for the past many  years have actually suffered a setback.

m- okay, I got that.

M- so, how was the gs paper.

s- Sir, it was good. the questions were quite general and not something too specific. I liked the papers.

m- so, tell me you have been preparing for the civil services, and if you get selected there and here also, we select you. wouldn't you choose the civil services.

s- Sir, this is also civil services.

(at this everybody there laughed and b2 said that is quite witty of you)

m- you are correct. so what this b1 does, that is also civil service and in this manner everybody is doing civil service.

s- yes sir. Sir, it can be called public service. May be what others are doing is public service and what we do being in the service is civil service. i am a bit confused in the two terms.

m- you are calling them servants. They do not like to be called as a servant.

s- But they are actually servants.

lady- servants of whom?

s- servants of the public mam. ( lady smiled and nodded)

member asked b1 to start questioning.

b3- so mr. saurabh, in ca you must have studied financial accounting.

s- yes sir.

b3- so what will you do if your balance sheet is not matching

s- ( i thought of saying that  will put the balance in the suspense a/c. but that would seem like giving up)

Sir, i would try to match it.

b3- how?

s- sir, first i will check whether the trial balance is matching or not so as the identify where the mistake is. 

b3- okay okay, i got my answer. ( he was quite with me from the very beginning)

passed on to b1.

b1- so saurabh, since this position is for cost analysis and management, I would ask you a few question on that.

s- okay sir

b1- saurabh, in most of the companies, allocation of overheads is the major issue since other direct expenses are easily allocable, how will you do that.

s- sir, it depends the kind of products they make or what type of industry it is.

b1- no no, you take any industry or any product. e.g. take sail, BHEL, etc etc...( he named some 10-12 PSUs). how will you monitor the overheads?

s- sir, i will do that by standard costing.

b1- how will you do that by standard costing. what are the various elements of that?

s- sir, overheads variance generally has two parts. the price factor and the activity level. i.e. whether the prices have increased or whether there is variation in my production.

b1- what are your views on activity based costing in PSUs.

s- sir, in activity based costing, the allocation is done individually and various cost drivers are used unlike in traditional method, wherein there is only one driver. This thing makes the process very complex. so, i feel ABC is the future of allocation but that cannot be done as a replacement. we have to adopt that slowly.

b1- okay now, i will give you a situation and you answer me what this concept is called.

s- ok sir

b1- suppose, there is a company and that company has invested huge resources in some technology. and after few years, that tech becomes obsolete and now the company has two options. whether to  wait and revive the tech it has. or whether to go for the new tech. and you are advisor to the company. tell me the amount that has been invested by the company till now, what is it for the company.

s- sir, it is a kind of sunk cost for the company.

b1 nodded

he passed on to the lady member.

lady- so saurabh, tell me you have done your articleship, you must have done all the stuff there.

s- mam, actually the firm in which i worked was basically a taxation firm.

lady - okay. so tell me do you know about revised schedule vi. how is it different from the earlier one. and when was it introduced.?

s- mam, in the revised schedule vi, the classification of the asset has changed and has been made more realistic. earlier, there used to fixed assets and investments and other things but now it has been  

changed to current assets and current liabilities.

lady- what else besides current thing. we have fixed assets also

s- mam, there is current assets and non current assets. ( she nodded)

lady- okay, do you know that the government follows single entry system but all others follow single entry system. What is the difference and should we shift to double entry system.

s- mam, in double entry system there are two entries in each transaction. e.g., if i am depositing cash into bank, the entry is bank a/c to cash a/c. Here, both the bank and cash a/c are affected. which is not the case with single entry system. ( the lady nodded).

lady- so should we shift to double entry system.

s- mam, i think we should shift to double entry system because in the double entry system, there is an inherent control in the system. the probability of mistakes are less.

lady- do u know What is xbrl ( smiling, as if she thought i din know)

s- mam, xbrl is xtensible business regulatory language ( it was actually reporting instead of regulatory but she nodded at that time). its a machine readable language, in which codes are specified and  documents are to be filled in those specified codes. With the use of xbrl, it becomes easy to compare the records of companies and to get more standardized knowledge about the industry(s). e.g. if want to know the cost and position structure of a particular industry, that can be done through this.

lady- which documents are to be filed in xbrl

s- mam, balance sheets, p/l and other related documents. ( she nodded)

the member, then started to say something

member- okay tell me one thing, we have so many good chartered accountants like you in the country but then why still we hear of so many frauds in the country?

s- sir, the issue is not with the knowledge part. CAs do have much knowledge but the issue is with their ethics and integrity. There should be severe punishments for the wrongs done by them. even the  new companies bill talks of severe punishments.

m- for the frauds done by the company?

s- no sir, for their gross negligence and for being involved in the fraud.

b1- Due Diligence also

s- yes sir, even Due Diligence also 

m- what are the punishments?

s- sir, there is jail for 3 years for the wrongs done.

m- okay now tell me, do u understand NPAs. where are shown NPAs shown in the balance sheets of the banks

s- sir, NPAs is non performing assets and these are assets which are non- performing i.e. interest or the principal is not being paid. but these are still assets of the company and shown in the asset side of  balance sheet. Sir, we do create provisions on such assets and such provisions are shown in the liabilities. sir, if interest is not paid for more than 6 months, we create some provision, if the period  increases the amount of provision increases. and after 3 years or so, the whole amount is written off.

m- written off?

s- no sir, not written off, but the provisions are created.

m- r u sure three years??

s- no sir, I'm not sure 3 years. these things are decided by RBI, this may 3 or 4 yrs. but it is something like that.

m- okay. now you can go.

s- Thank you sir.

( I thought I would go till the door and then turn back and say a final thankyou but when I did that, nobody was looking at me and everybody was busy writing something, so i had to drop that plan.)

the day I ate at pizzahut...

It was my 19th birthday. I was treating my taste buds with Amit at pizzahut. Just as we walked towards the parking lot after the sumptuous meal, we saw a person with his wife in a hot argument with a bouncer looking guy.  Interested to know, we went ahead to see what’s going on.

The person was accusing the bouncer of molesting his wife and the bouncer reverted back by hurling abuses. After the husband started shouting on him, bouncer lost his temper and slapped him tightly. Before this point I was not in a mood to take sides since i didn't know the facts, but that hit made me compassionate towards the couple.

Crowd gathered in a perfect round shape encircling the trio. I intervened to stop the bouncer but could not help much. I dialed 100 after the helplessness. I asked my co-spectators why didn't they intervene. One of them laughed and said, as if it was a dabangg-2 screening, why should I? Who is he to me? Then I said the same old dialogue, "Aapke ghar me bhi maa-behen hogi, kal ko aap unke sath aye aur aapke sath aisa ho, tab aap kya karenge..". I thought my dialogue would make him speechless but to my dismay, his reply made me speechless. He said, “We don't bring our women to malls and movies at this time, so we need not worry."

I tried hard to make sense out of his statement. Did that meant anything or did that not? That question made me awake till late. It was then I received a call from a policeman asking "where are you, what’s the scene and where the fight is going on." I was like " sab khatam hogya uncle. Those involved must now be sleeping tight in their respective beds." (Obviously the couple on the same). The policeman asked for my attendance at his station. It was about midnight. After some arguments, I was excused. After thinking for a while on policing, I chose to focus my thoughts on the main issue. What did that guy mean?

Was that really an excuse for not helping? Was that an excuse in his own eyes? Was it the timing or was it the place that was to be blamed, in his eyes? Was he alone or there must be many more like him? Is it because society came into existence much before the institution of police, state and cities? From where did this culture of “not bringing" came up? Then I thought, May be when there was no policing and when the population was scattered, to be home when it was dark was quite good a solution to avoid such nuisances. Since women are physically not that strong when compared to men and have much more to lose relatively. That was a kind of jugaad. Some learned of that time must have suggested that solution and all others must have followed that. This practice might have become a tradition which was followed by the masses. Although the masses might not have understood the underlying assumptions behind such a solution.

But the premises today have changed.(At least those mentioned in the present case) The underlying assumptions behind the practice stand good no more. Population is not that scattered for anybody to notice nuisances, at least in metros and cities. Further the police came into existence, equipped with modern gazettes. But still that tradition continues. More so, those who do not follow that have to suffer by not being helped, even when they could have been. Instead of being helped, they are laughed upon for not following the social norms.

I agree that "To be stubborn against the inevitable is to court failure", but what is evitable should be avoided.

The above case reminds me of a story. Once, when the Zen spiritual teacher and his disciples began their evening meditation, the cat that lived in the monastery made such noise that it distracted them. So the teacher ordered that the cat be tied up during the evening practice. Years later, when the teacher died, the cat continued to be tied up during the meditation session. And when the cat eventually died, another cat was brought to the monastery and tied up.Centuries later, learned descendants of the spiritual teacher wrote scholarly papers about the religious significance of tying up a cat for meditation practice. 

Protests against ourselves

Met Divya, a friend, after so long.. It was 4 in the evening. She said, "After so much buzz around the bus gangrape case, I need to be home early. People really don't care about crime happening nearby." I instantly replied, " you are safe till people around do not forget the incident and are protesting, so you can roam freely atleast for a month.”

This made me think why did people need to protest so heavily this time. Why was it assumed that police will not act? I mean, no influential persons were involved in the aforesaid case unlike Jessica Lal case. Those involved in the shameful act cannot influence the legal procedure in any way. The police would have eventually done what it did now.

Further, protesters demanded a change in the law so as to increase the punishment for the wrongdoers. It was asked to change the punishment to a death penalty or atleast castration. Here too, why would a government not change a law so popularly demanded. What self-interest would the government serve in not amending the law. Rather, It’s in the interest of the government to appease its voter. More so when the elections are to held next year.

Let me think for a second from a rapist's eye. After raping someone, what would I do to avoid a punishment? Will I kill the victim for nobody will get to know what I did? No, that would be too risky since the punishment for murder is a death penalty and that for a rape is just ten years of imprisonment. And what would happen if the punishment for rape is same as that of a murder. I will have in incentive to kill the victim since that would reduce my chances of getting caught without any increase in the risk involved. Now what do you think, Should the punishment for rape be a death award? I guess not.

Now talking about castration .i.e. to perform surgical or chemical procedures whereby the operatee is no more in a position to have sex anymore. Castration as a solution misunderstands the nature of rape as a crime. Rape is not just about sex. It’s much more than that. It extends to exertion of power and violence. It aims at inflicting damage, both psychological and physical. To punish with castration would narrow the rationale of rape to only sex.

I think thirty years of rigorous imprisonment (which is ten years as of now, but the government will be making it thirty soon) is not less if sentenced timely. I think we lack in implementation, not in coding the laws. The implementing agencies i.e. the police and the judiciary both needs an overhaul.  For example, Fast track courts, Strict timelines for filing of charge sheets, ban on two finger test etc. There are lots of legal and medical amendments to be made, to make the system fair and fast.

Coming back to the protests, what I realized is that people just wanted to show their anger against the brutal wrongs done by some psychic members of the society. The protests were not against the government. Those were against the society by the society so as to improve the society. This was a kind of introspection.

The protests did make a positive impact. It made everybody think and talk about the issue. People, who used to flip channels when such incidents are being aired on news, for sex (even if forced) is not an issue that is discussed openly atleast in our society, now openly discussed it. Everybody was discussing it with everybody. Autodrivers were discussing it with their passengers, teachers with their students, godmans with their disciples, and bosses with their subordinates. These discussions further refine the views of society as whole against this crime. For It is actually the society and not the laws, that actually make the change happen...