Hailing from Thrissur, Kerala, Shahansha KS has secured the All India Rank 142 at the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Exam (CSE) 2020. Son of a shopkeeper father and school teacher mother, he is also a professional athlete and trained with the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
A professional runner, Shahansha has run several 100 meters, 200 meters, and 400 metres races. As an athlete, Shahansha has bagged many wins over the years but success in the civil services came to him after six failed attempts.
He has participated in 80-85 national-level competitions and claims to have garnered 30 plus state medals and 14 national medals. The 30-year-old was also athletics state team captain at Calicut University. He also won gold medals in the 400 metres race in the All India Inter-University Athletics Championships 2011 and 2013, the National Junior Athletics Championship, and the All India School Athletics Championship.
At UPSC civil services, he cracked prelims in all his seven attempts and even reached the interview round thrice. Belonging to the OBC category, he was allowed as many as nine changes at civil services.
“Failure is part of athletics, so I know how to persevere. The same formula applies to UPSC. There is no particular strategy to crack the exam. Only hard work and perseverance are the key,” says Shahansha.
While he kept trying at CSE, he cleared other govt recruitment exams. Shahansha had already worked as Assistant Commander in the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and is currently the division security commissioner in the Indian Railway Police Force Service (IPFS).
For the UPSC, he’s trained at several institutes across Delhi and other states. Since his training for CISF was at Hyderabad and IPFS was at Lucknow, he also stayed at both cities places for a brief period.
In the initial stages of his preparation, he used to study for 10-12 hours per day but due to his job, the number of hours got reduced to 4-6 hours per day gradually. “In the morning before going to the office, I would get at 7 am and study for 2-3 hours and after returning from office around 7.30 pm, I would again study for 2-3 hours,” he says.
Shahansha’s optional paper for the first six attempts was geography but for the final attempt, he changed it to political science and internal relations.
Recalling his personality test round, he says it was an opinion-based interview. “Since my name is Shahansha, they asked me what are cases in which you are not Shahansah. Since I’m from Kerala, they also asked me about Kerala politics and the tourism sector in the state – what all new initiatives would I like to take.”
“Since I also have a sports background, I was asked a few questions on sports such as even after having 1.2 billion people in India, which is the country that is not performing well in sports. I was also asked about sports genetics and if I am selected as an IPS officer, what would I be looking forward to?” he says.
His love for sports was ignited in childhood. His maternal grandfather was an army personnel and watching him train made him fall in love with sports right from childhood. “My love for sports started from my childhood with my maternal grandfather being in the army. Plus, I have worked in sports and in uniform service, so I have always wanted to be an IPS officer,” Shahansha told News18.
He completed his graduation in mechanical engineering from Government Engineering College, Thrissur in 2013.
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