The arid landscape only helped him strive harder. From Mandi taluka in the Kutch region, come the success story of Jayveer Gadhvi. The 25-year-old Jayveer’s father is an auto-rickshaw driver while his mother, a simple homemaker. Jayveer is among the six names from Gujarat to have cleared the UPSC 2021 exams.
“My mother taught me to dream big. If you can dream it, you can do it, is what we have heard up growing. I also vividly remember the Kutch earthquake of 2001 and how good talatis, mamlatdars and civil servants made a huge difference to the plight of thousands. Somewhere, that stuck on,” shares the modest UPSC officer who gained an all-India rank of 341.
His childhood, as he shares, was a grounding one. “Despite the meagre earnings my father brought in, we were taught to value hard work as the only route to success. My mother stood as the rock behind us all. For me, this need to get out of a financially-weak strata was a beginning of sorts,” he recalls.
After completing his primary education at a government school in his native place, Gadhvi was selected to Navodaya Vidyalaya, Kutch. This was his alma mater till the Secondary stage. For the +2 stage, he moved to Rajkot.
His parents made sure that the four children are educated. As fate would have it, Jayveer went on to pursue an engineering course and landed himself with a job paying Rs 80,000 per month. His brother was not academically inclined and settled for a job as a tempo-driver. One of his two sisters is now a doctor.
“Everything seemed fine. But something was amiss,” he shares when probed on taking up the civil services route. He set himself a target of cracking the exams and quit his job to concentrate on the first step. “Clearing the GPSC Class 1-2 exams was done in the first attempt and I was posted as deputy collector, Vadodara. This honour was all I needed to settle for nothing less,” as he puts it.
Jayveer’s story is sure the stuff success is made of. Hard work, determination and the will to do it. “Above all, never give up on your dreams. Good and bad days will be part of the journey but keep that motivation burning with,” is the mantra to success.
Jayveer also attributes his luck to the achievement. “I was fortunate to have come across exemplary teachers. I will remain forever indebted to each one of them,” he adds.
