A 26-year-old UPSC aspirant has sold years of his civil services preparation material to a kabadiwala for Rs 464 after three consecutive Mains attempts and a failed Prelims this year. The books included the NCERTs he started with, Laxmikanth, his first test papers, mock tests and handwritten notes. For years, they had been part of his daily life. This week, they became scrap.The aspirant shared the experience in a Reddit post and wrote, “Sold all my UPSC books and mock tests to the kabadiwala yesterday. Here’s what it felt like.” The post written under the subreddit r/UPSC has since got viral.
Three Mains attempts, then it ended
The aspirant said he appeared for UPSC Mains in 2023, 2024 and 2025. This year, for the first time, he did not clear Prelims. “Three back-to-back Mains – 2023, 2024, 2025. This year, for the first time, I didn’t even clear Prelims. It’s over now,” he wrote.“Yesterday I sold the last lot of it. The NCERTs I started with. Laxmikant. My very first test papers, the ones from when this whole thing still felt like a beginning instead of an ending. And a lot more,” he added.As the books landed on the weighing scale, he said he felt numb. “I put it all on one side of the kabadiwala’s weighing scale. And with every book that landed on that pile, something in me went numb. Hollow. Because that stack wasn’t paper, it was every mock I wrote for Mains, every Prelims test, every analysis sheet I made at 4 AM, every page of notes in handwriting I used to be proud of. It was answers I’d corrected, rewritten, corrected again, trying to get one mark closer each time. It was effort. Years of it,” he wrote in the post.
He had turned down a high-paying job in 2022
According to his post, he had graduated in 2022 and chose not to take a high-paying job because he believed he could build his career through the civil services. Years later, he said people either mock him for that decision or pity him for it. He also spoke about the end of a four-year relationship.“And there was a relationship, four years, gone too. Restart after restart. Hope, grit, that stubborn fighter spirit that kept saying one more try. There had been repeated attempts to start again. Each setback was followed by renewed hope. There was always the thought of trying “one more time,” he added.But eventually, even that stopped. “When the last book finally went on the pile, all of that, the years, the version of myself I built and rebuilt for this, got measured in kilograms,” he wrote.
The books were worth just Rs 464
He donated the entire Rs 464 he got from selling the books at a temple.
The scrap dealer gave him Rs 464. “Someone standing nearby said I should’ve held out for ₹600. I just smiled and said: Kitabo se jo milna tha, woh mila nahi. Fir aur 100-200 jyada kam mile toh kya hi farq padta hai. (What I needed from these books, I never got. So what does another hundred or two, more or less, really change now?)”
He donated the Rs 464 at a temple
The aspirant did not keep the money. He donated the entire Rs 464 at a temple. He made it clear that it was not for merit or luck, and certainly not for another UPSC attempt. “There is no next time,” he wrote. His final words were blunt. He said he wanted to tell God, quietly, that he still had “a bigger heart than you did with me.”It was an unusual ending to a long preparation journey. There was no promise to return next year. No declaration that he would try harder. Just acceptance that it was over.
Why his post struck a chord with many aspirants all over India
The post resonated with other aspirants and former candidates online, many of whom said they understood the pressure and emotional exhaustion that can come with years of civil services preparation. The striking part of his story is not really the Rs 464. It is the gap between what the books meant to him and what they were worth as scrap.Then one day, all of the books and mock papers were weighed together. Paper has a scrap value. Years do not. For this aspirant, the Rs 464 was simply the amount he received for closing a chapter that had already cost him a job opportunity, a relationship and years of preparation. The books went to the kabadiwala. The money went to a temple. And the UPSC journey, after three Mains attempts and one final Prelims failure, ended there.
