For 2 hrs Sasaram station becomes coaching hub for civil servant aspirants

Sasaram, in Bihar, is well known for politics and history, both. Sher Shah Suri established Sasaram as the capital for the Suri dynasty between 1530 and 1540 before the move to Delhi for the remaining five years of Suri rule. Sasaram still has a mausoleum in his memory, a red stone tomb designed by the architect Aliwal Khan and built between 1540 and 1545. It stands at the centre of a lake on a square stone plinth and is connected to the mainland by a wide stone bridge.
 
Equally well known, is Sasaram for one of its favourite sons, Babu Jagjivan Ram, a Dalit leader who rose to become defence minister in Indira Gandhi’s cabinet and then quit to join the Janata Party. In the 1960s and 1970s, Jagjivan Ram’s vote from Sasaram needed to be weighed, not counted, so huge was his margin of victory in every election (in 1971, for instance, he bagged 210,353 votes out of 314,201 votes polled).

 
But lately, Sasaram’s fame has been eclipsed somewhat. Today, the mausoleum is on the edge of ruin and the lake is a stinking mass of filthy water where locals dumps sewage. Its MP, Chhedi Paswan, has repeatedly raised the issue of protection to all the historical places in Sasaram, including the Rohtasgarh fort, but his pleas have got very little traction. Sasaram seems to have just become another tired, dirty, small town in Bihar, fighting to recover lost glory but with little success…
 

But is that really true?
 
Go to the Sasaram railway station in the morning on any day of the week. It is like any other railway station in India: The fragrance of stewed tea mingling with frying oil, onions and that indescribable smell of a railway station as passengers wait with their luggage. But on Platform 1 and 2, at the very end, there is a gaggle of young men. They are all studying, writing, talking.

 
For two hours every morning and evening, this corner of the railway station turns into a coaching class for young people who are aspirants for the civil services: The Indian Administrative Service, the state civil service, multiple bank examinations, even entry to the IITs and IIMs. It all began in 2002-03 when a small group of students started coming to Sasaram railway station to study. Now the Sasaram railway station study groups have become an institution.
 
Senior students — both those who have been successful and those who have not — come to the station to coach younger boys in what has become a ritual over the years. At its height, the number of boys who are studying is reported to have been 1,200.

 
The reason? Sasaram station has electricity 24X7. And the power never goes.
 
Mostly, the boys are from Rohtas, the district in Bihar that is hit by Left wing insurgency. In many villages, either there is no power or the electricity is only intermittent. These boys see a government job as the end of their struggles and take advantage of the well lit station to sit under the lamp-post to study. The station has acknowledged its role in shaping careers and has actually issued 500 identity cards to the boys to enable them to come and go freely, using the platform as temporary open classrooms. Some boys don’t go home at all, opting to sleep there at night. They use the platform to take lessons and tips from seniors: Not just for the written examinations but also for interviews.

 
The coaching involves sets of questions on a variety of subjects: Current affairs, mathematics, reasoning and language.
 
Local newspapers report that the group is called The Quiz. In an interview, Santosh, from Kochas in Rohtas district, says he has rented a room close to the station and attends both the morning and evening sessions at the platform. “It helps to sharpen the competitive edge. I will sit for every exam that I am eligible for. I may not clear at the first instance, but at least I will get the exposure and do better next time,” he is quoted as telling local newspapers. “Not only is the environment at these coaching classes conducive but the methodology adopted by the groups also ensures weeding out of non-serious students,” says Sandip Kumar Srivastava from Sila village in Kochas, who was once part of Quiz. “If any student misses the sessions for even two days in a week, he is ousted from the group unless he has a credible reason to be absent. A list is put out on the students’ performance group-wise.”

 
It is hard to assess the strike rate of those studying here. But footwear neatly arranged and small mats on which boys sit cross-legged in little groups poring over books and papers… it is a sight to behold and a testament to the resilience of young India.