I firmly believe that getting selected in the Civil Service Examination is a chance occurrence. An Accident you might say.
Consider this. A million people enter the fray at the prelims stage. Around 16k get selected for the mains. Around 3–4K for the interview. Out of this only a 1000 people will make it to the final list. There are many who don’t make it to the list for want of a single mark. In my year, in the same mark that I scored, there were around 15 people. If my marks had increased by one, I would have been in a different service. 10–15 marks I would have been in still another service. In my service itself, there are around 7 people with my same marks. All of us have different ranks. And the seniority that we will carry throughout our career depends on the UPSC Rank. So people with the same marks have different ranks and hence different seniority.
Isn’t this all a cosmic accident?
Hence: An Accidental Civil Servant.