Jatin Gupta

An Open Letter to Those Who Just Cleared the Civil Services Exam The UPSC CSE 2025 results are out. And before the dust of celebration could settle, the circus began. Coaching institutes racing to claim you. Ed-tech platforms stitching your face into their next ad. Teachers attributing your years of struggle to their one course. Social media turning your journey into a 90-second reel with a discount code at the end. I want to talk to you. Not as someone watching from outside, but as someone who has lived inside this process. In 2011, I left a corporate job I genuinely loved. Walked away from comfort because something about this examination had gripped me. I was starry-eyed. Hopelessly, naively starry-eyed. A few of us from college started preparing together, and I remember how we treated every word from our seniors who had cleared the exam as gospel. We discussed their advice endlessly, in rented rooms in Rajinder Nagar, at tea stalls, on our way back from the libraries. But here's what I also remember clearly: we could always tell apart the seniors who guided with care from those who were reckless with their words. The ones who oversimplified, who credited one book or one trick for their success, we looked down on them. Not because they had failed us, but because we knew that someone somewhere would take that careless advice seriously and pay for it. That instinct, to hold successful people accountable for the weight their words carry, seems to be disappearing. You have cleared an examination that tests you across seven papers, an interview, and years of sustained reading, thinking, and writing. The idea that one teacher, one test series, or one Telegram channel "cracked" this for you is not just inaccurate. It is disrespectful to your own effort. And when you let that narrative stand unchallenged, or worse, when you participate in it, you are not just misrepresenting your journey. You are reshaping someone else's. Think about that person for a moment. A first-generation aspirant in a district town, watching your interview on YouTube tonight. They don't have a mentor. They don't have a senior to call. They are going to take what you say and build their entire strategy around it. If you tell them one source was enough, they will believe you. If you make it sound easy, they will blame themselves when it isn't. If you become a billboard for a coaching brand within a week of your result, they will think that's what success looks like. Don't do that to them. Be honest about how long it actually took. Talk about the multiple sources, the failed attempts, the loneliness, the self-doubt. Don't reduce a journey of years into a brand endorsement. When someone puts a camera in front of you, remember that the person watching isn't looking for content. They are looking for direction. Maybe most of you will never read this. Maybe it won't reach the ones who need to hear it. But if even one of you pauses before that next interview or that brand deal and thinks about the aspirant watching, it will have been worth writing. I have taught in this ecosystem for twelve years now. I have watched it change, some of it for the better, much of it not. Ed-tech democratised access, and that was genuinely important. But it also turned preparation into content, candidates into audiences, and rankers into influencers. That slide has been gradual, but it is now impossible to ignore. You have earned something extraordinary. Tomorrow, your responsibilities begin. To the public, to the Constitution, to the idea of service. But today, right now, you already have one responsibility. To every aspirant who is looking at you and trying to find their way. Don't let them down. Be the senior you needed when you started. I am disappointed. But I am still here, still teaching, still hopeful, because I believe you are better than what this ecosystem is trying to make you. Prove me right.