Joining the Indian Armed Forces or the Indian Administrative Services was my childhood dream.

But, destiny had something else in store for me and I ended up as a journalist. A profession, about which it is said, is only about indulging in finding faults with others.

I still dream. In my dreams I am a super hero, living a life I am not able to in real life. I indulge my imagination to get carried away with the wildest possible thoughts. And I dare anyone to challenge them.

In my dreams I reform society and bring about social changes, fly aircrafts and win gallantry awards from the president himself. There’s more. With great delight I picture myself telling my bosses how to run their business smoothly. In real life they would probably tell me to go and take a walk! But in my dreams I rule, and continue to rule, even after in real life they may have been shattered well and good.

Like my dream of becoming a pompous Indian Administrative Officer. Four missed chances and I was out of the race. But not out of my make-believe world. I continued to dream about “silencing” the UPSC chairman at the viva-voce, even though there was obviously no chance of our coming face to face.

But three-and-half-years ago, when I was posted in Dhanbad, there I was, face to face with my dream, I mean the UPSC chairman, P.C. Hota.

For once, I woke up to the reality of the situation and got cracking at once. And Hota, there to award degrees at the Indian School of Mines convocation, seemed all too willing to play along.

I started bombarding him with questions, almost breathlessly. In spite of qualifying after passing one of the toughest exams, wasn’t it strange that the officers still made silly mistakes and were corrupt, was my attacking start, following it up with more. Was it the poor quality of the selectors or the poor training given to them, I wondered on his face.

If I thought I had silenced him, I hadn’t. He had his replies ready. Hota frankly admitted that though he was considering introducing selective use of psychology tests at the civil service examination, and that there was no set standard to correctly assess the inherent qualities of individual candidates.

He threw the challenge back at me, asking, if after the Bofors kickbacks can it be claimed that psychological tests for selecting officers in the armed forces are perfect and have practical value.

Arguments I had heard before. I remembered a former member of the Bihar Public Service Commission, Madhav Sinha, too had told me a candidate giving perfect replies at the interview stage was no guarantee of his maintaining that standard during his career phase too.

I still went on grilling, sure that he must have had enough of me at the end of it. But much to my surprise he actually sent me a letter after reaching Delhi, inviting me to join his discussions on reforms in the civil services.

But I never met him again. I was probably disheartened that my report on it had failed to impress my bosses or my colleagues, either. But somehow, I never did forget what Hota had said. Training never ends. But I hardly ever saw officials in any post taking training programmes seriously.

The director-general’s post at Shri Krishna Institute of Public Administration in Ranchi, too, is considered a dumping ground or a “parlour” for officials of the rank of chief secretary.

There’s hardly any desire to train oneself for bigger challenges, of which there are many in the state today. The Naxalites being only one of the challenges. But instead of training to deal with it, the police have restricted their challenge to just saving their weapons and uniforms.

While cops posted in remote areas live under the Naxalite threat, in the towns, it is the common man who is under constant threat of police extortions. Specially from those posted under VIPs or high officials.

A life of comfort is what the bureaucrat wants, is the widely held conception among the people. And it’s all too evident everywhere, as they pass through the streets, their sirens loudly blaring and their red lights screaming for attention. Former Bihar chief secretary K.K. Srivastava had told me that he had his training in a hutment in Delhi during the 1950s. Though he was already married at that time, he could not and did not keep his family with him during the training period. After becoming a SDO he used to go to his office on a bycyle.

Today, the training institute for IAS probationers has all the comforts. Training in high style living is something that never ends for them. Much like my dreams, always looking for new delights.