Her name is Surabhi Gautam.
She grew up in Amdara, a small village in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh. There was often no electricity in her home, so she studied by whatever light she could find. Her father was a lawyer at the local court and her mother a schoolteacher.
She attended a government-run Hindi medium village school with almost no facilities.
She was brilliant from the start. She scored full marks in mathematics and science in her board exams and topped the state merit list, all from a village classroom with none of the advantages most toppers had.
In Class 12, she fell seriously ill with rheumatic fever. Every fifteen days, her parents travelled around 150 kilometres to Jabalpur so she could receive treatment.
She kept studying through it.
She later became the first girl from her village to leave for a city to pursue higher education, joining an engineering college in Bhopal.
On her very first day, she could not introduce herself in English. Her classmates laughed at her and a teacher openly doubted whether she belonged there.
She did not break.
Instead, she decided to master the language that had humiliated her. She learned ten new English words every day and practised speaking to herself when no one was around.
By the end of the first semester, she had topped her college.
She went on to graduate with a gold medal.
Then she simply did not stop.
She cleared examinations for GATE, ISRO, BARC, SAIL, SSC and Delhi Police. She later worked as a scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.
In 2013, she secured All India Rank 1 in the Engineering Services Examination.
In 2016, on her first attempt, she cleared the UPSC Civil Services Examination with an All India Rank of 50 and became an IAS officer.
The girl who was laughed at because she could not speak a single line of English now serves as one of the administrators of the country.
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