How paper is shaping the UPSC journeys of thousands in Pune.
What does it take to crack the toughest exams of the world?
Patience? Sleepless nights? A gifted brain?
Ask anyone preparing for the civil services, and the answers will vary. But if you spend time in Pune, you will see that at the core of every answer is a practicality.
This is what brought us to Pune. A search for the right answers, and to see what role paper plays in helping students chase their dreams.
“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”
— Abigail Adams
A City That Runs on Dreams
Pune is unlike most cities. Beneath its reputation as the ‘Oxford of the East’ lies something more specific: a quiet, relentless energy that belongs to the thousands of young people who arrive here every year with the goal of clearing the civil services exam.
Nearly 10 to 13 lakh candidates apply for the civil services exam every year. Even as they fill the forms and get to studying, all of them know that only a fraction will make it. Yet the coaching centres are full, the study halls are occupied long before dawn, and the libraries hum with the silence of unrelenting focus.
Pune has become a gathering place for this ambition. Aspirants travel from across Maharashtra and beyond, drawn by its coaching institutes, its community of like-minded peers, and an understanding that this is a city that takes preparation seriously.
We arrived wanting to understand what that preparation actually looks like and what role paper plays in it.
Aspirants told us how writing by hand was better for learning than digital notes. It slows thought down to a pace where understanding can actually take root.
Pages Full of Purpose
What we found was surprising and not surprising at the same time. More importantly, it was deeply moving.
Talking to UPSC aspirants, we understood that for them, paper is where everything happens. Notes are made, revised, and made again. Schedules are drawn out by hand. Mock tests are attempted on paper because the actual exam will be too. We saw the relationship between an aspirant and their notebook to be one of the most honest partnerships in education, one built on repetition and discipline.
There is a reason for this. Aspirants told us how writing by hand was better for learning than digital notes. It slows thought down to a pace where understanding can actually take root. For an exam that tests not just knowledge but the ability to think, analyse, and articulate, this becomes crucial.
When asked whether they preferred notes or screens, the answer was almost unanimous. Paper. Paper works better. It holds attention. It demands engagement. It leaves a record on the page and in our memories.
Paper works better. It holds attention. It demands engagement. It leaves a record on the page and in our memories.
The Grind Behind the Dream
Every aspirant we spoke to carried themselves with confidence. Some were on their first attempt. Others had been at it for years, returning with more resolve each time.
Their dedication was impressive due to the physicality of it. Bags heavy with books. Desks covered in colour-coded notes. Pages annotated so thoroughly that the original print was barely visible. This is what a civil service dream looked like up close: thousands of handwritten pages and small acts of belief.
Behind every name on the merit list is a story like this. A stack of notebooks. A pen nearly run dry. A dream held together, quite literally, by paper.
Pune and Paper
In our series Paper Matters Travels, we travel to understand paper’s role in real lives in practice. In Pune, that role is potent. Paper is where the aspirants organise their thoughts, test their knowledge, and remind themselves, day after day, of what they are working towards.
In an age that increasingly demands migration to online options, the aspirants of Pune are reminders of the fact that some things are simply better on paper. The civil services exam is one of them. The dreams that drive people to attempt it belong on paper too.
