For as long as she can remember, Puja Sharma has had a “craze” for a government job. And a spot in the Railways is her “ekdum dream job (just my dream job)”.
A year ago, that “craze” is what brought her to Patna from her hometown Jamshedpur, where her father works as a carpenter. “The pandemic has shown the difference between private and government jobs. Government jobs are stable, they get you respect. I want that. The study environment in Patna is more serious and I am hoping I can focus more here,” says the 25-year-old, who has appeared for the exams thrice.
The eldest of three siblings, she is among hundreds of aspirants who have been gathering at the Kali Ghat by the Ganga every weekend to firm up their preparation for the competitive exam.
A (above) after four hours of coaching, Puja revises her lessons before going to bed.
The mock tests at the ghats were started over two months ago by S K Jha, a mechanical engineer-turned-coaching teacher. Since his coaching classes for Railways and SSB aspirants, which he started in 2014, could only accommodate a little over a 1,000 students a batch, Jha started the 90-minute mock test sessions on the ghats. Anywhere between 5,000-10,000 students take the test every Saturday and Sunday morning.
Recently, as images from the ghats went viral — of several students sitting on the steps, their heads buried into their test papers — they told an India story, or more specifically, a Bihar one: of the struggles and…
