LBSNAA, until next time

Waking up today morning was a surreal feeling. By end of the day, I’ll not be an IAS probationer anymore. I’ll not be called IAS Officer Trainee. I’ll be IAS officer! It’s been a journey of eight years. That 2012 December month, where I was rummaging through the websites of few IAS self-help websites for guidance and preparation to searching my name in the final result sheets of UPSC Civil Services exam to landing at the gates of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) to the passing out ceremony today (albeit online one – yes online; people are saying it’s the new normal it seems), the journey has been crazy. 

Now the luxury of being officer trainee is no more there. Mistakes made and even encouraged, are easily excused during training. You can afford to be ignorant. You can plainly ask your seniors. Now that honeymoon period (literally) is over.  Am I ready for the field? I don’t know. Do I want to be ready for the field? I don’t know. But such is life and the passing of time that, you got to move on. Whether I want or not, next week I’ll be full fledged officer, holding charges as SDM & PO.

The last one year of District Training had provided a long glimpse into life ahead.  I’m nervously Excited (if I could say so). All the things I had imagined, dreamt of, preached to others is now in my hands to implement. Oh its so easy, oh the Collector could have done that, why are they not collecting the data properly, why this that….It’s all my obligation now.

But also,  it can be said that life is a training in itself. Each  day in the life and service is a new learning. If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt so far in the long two year training Period is that you need to be in a learning mode always. I think that will take me a long way. 

It’s been a long tiring day, mentally.  Will take your leave!