“Your worth is not decided by an exam, a rank, or a result. It is decided by who you are when all of that is taken away.”

On the day the UPSC results were announced in 2024, Shruti Shrivastava balanced her phone against a stack of books and pressed record. After seven years of preparation, six attempts, four prelims cleared and one interview, she wanted to save the moment she saw her name on the final list.

Instead, the camera recorded heartbreak. As the list loaded, confidence gave way to disbelief. Then silence.

Her name wasn’t there.

“I genuinely thought I had made it,” she says. “The interview had gone well. I had worked harder than ever before. When I couldn’t find my name, it felt like the ground disappeared beneath me.”

For days afterwards, she barely left her room.

The grief wasn’t only about losing a future she had imagined for nearly a decade and questioning her own worth.

Today, she leads ‘Sashaktikaran Foundation’ in Bhopal, working with over 800 rural children and helping around 30 women build sustainable livelihoods.

She calls it a process of grieving, healing, and learning that a dream can end without a life ending with it.

A friend, a small school, and the questions that stayed

Long before UPSC entered her life, Shruti grew up across the towns and districts of Madhya Pradesh.

Her parents, Om Prakash Shrivastava and Bharti Shrivastava, both worked in government service. Because they were frequently transferred, she moved between schools and neighbourhoods. She learnt to adapt.

“Every transfer brought a new environment. But she accepted each situation and adjusted herself to it. She was sensitive, serious about her studies and responsibilities, but she rarely complained,” her father says.

Most of her friends came from ordinary households, children whose parents worked as labourers, domestic workers, or daily wage earners.

One girl left a lasting impression. Her father worked as a labourer, and her mother had passed away. Before and after school, she cooked, cleaned, and managed household responsibilities.

“I remember wondering how she managed everything. She would finish her chores, go to school, come back and continue working. Then she would come out to play as if nothing was unusual,” she tells The Better India.

Shruti attended one of the better schools available there, while her friend studied in a small government school with limited facilities.

“She would tell me stories about her school. Sometimes she would say the teachers slept during class. At that age, I didn’t understand policy or inequality. I only knew something felt unfair,” she recalls.

Why did some children have opportunities that others didn’t?

“Even during her middle-school years, she was very vocal about discrimination,” her mother says. “Whether it was the difference between boys and girls in villages or the way domestic workers were treated, she would always question it.”

The girl who lost her confidence

As she learned about inequality, she also experienced another side of it. Some of her earliest memories involve comments about her appearance. A relative making fun of her complexion — someone asking why she was so dark.

“The first incident I remember was when I was four........

© The Better India