New Delhi: IAS officers in India are known to be rigid, rule-abiding, people who measure their lives between in and out file baskets sitting on chairs draped in white towels. So, when Indian Administrative Service officer Hariom sang a song at a Dal Lake shikara in Kashmir, it was bound to go viral.
Virality is not what IAS officers are known for. But recently many officers are not only singing, acting and dancing, but are also uploading their videos. His creative outbursts spread like wildfire on social media, certainly faster than the speed of a government file.
The faceless, official steel frame of India is singing. And people are enjoying it. He is the new star on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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ias officer carpe diem
The last time people sang romantic songs on Dal Lake was in Bollywood movies and music videos. But a cute song of loss and longing by an Uttar Pradesh cadre IAS officer serving in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government is not shared on WhatsApp groups every day.
,I am killed by your love, Sikandar but I am defeatedUP Principal Secretary Dr Hariom sang the song written by him. He regularly sings ghazals by Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali, Talat Mehmood and many others.
This is not her first brush with fame going viral on social media.
In 2007, when Hari Om was posted in Gorakhpur, which is Yogi’s constituency and the seat of his mutt, Hari Om also arrested Adityanath, the then BJP MP, and sent him to jail for 11 days. When Yogi became the CM of UP, many feared that he would ‘not spare’ the IAS officer. But Hariom presented his book, Kailash Mansarovar Yatra To Yogi, and that picture went viral.
IAS officers are more than happy to see their music clips being shared on social media. “I always wanted to do something different. Ever since I was a kid, people used to praise my voice, but I never got a chance to develop my hobby due to paucity of time,” he says.
Music was a neglected hobby and over time, it had become an itch that he didn’t want anymore. He wasn’t just a bathroom singer. He sang in school, college and even in IAS Academy, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA). But after 10 successful years as an IAS officer, it was time.
Hari Om has put out six albums in 17 years keeping up with the tide of technology. His early albums were cassettes, then CDs and now, he releases them on YouTube. And he still calls himself a part-time artist.
He releases a song every month on his YouTube channel, which has more than 8,000 subscribers. His small legion of fans are mesmerized by the “purity” of his voice. “Simply awesome presentation. Soulful voice. ..really heartwarming,” writing a commentator.
For many of these executives, the Covid pandemic came as a carpe diem moment. Business as usual was no longer going to cut it.
Like Hari Om, IAS officer Rakhi Gupta had confined her audience to friends and family for 25 years. But then he had a nasty attack of covid, which saw him hospitalized. While the doctors gave remdesivir and oxygen, the ‘word’Life will not happen again’ kept playing inside his head. It was kind of a turning point.
“Now, I tell everyone that you only get to live once. Whatever your hobby, follow it,” says Gupta, a 1997 batch UP cadre.
Music comes naturally to her and her mother is also a talented singer. He sang the first song after recovering from Kovid.Ratungi Radha NameWhich kept trending on social media for several days.
“Covid taught us to live life to the fullest, and then one day I took the time and recorded the song,” she says. A few days later, his song made it to Times Music. list where he stayed for two months.
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music as stressbuster
The work of an IAS officer – whether as a district magistrate or in the secretariat – is a break-less, breathless and often grateful, 24×7 life. Letting your hair down is no place for creative pursuits. The temporal rigid upper lip is part of the calling and eventually becomes them.
“If we are a collector or an officer of a department, consider it a burden, then both the work and the staff working with you will become a burden,” says Hariom. “But since I have included music in my life, No matter how difficult the task, he hums.” Even the most mind-blowing tasks don’t let him down. “It can also be creative,” he says.
Music is a stress buster for Rakhi Gupta, who studied at Lady Shri Ram College and Delhi School of Economics. His introduction to the professional world of music was by chance. She was “humming some tunes at a party” and caught the attention of a guest who was from the music industry. “He gave me a chance to record a song for him.” A few days after the song’s release, they learned that it had been picked up by Times Music.
As a senior IAS officer—and, a woman—Gupta was initially concerned about public perception. Will there be any reaction? Will this affect his career? In all the scenarios playing out in her head, she never once entertained the sudden rise to fame.
“In October 2020, when the whole world was in the grip of Covid, my song was released and I started trending on Twitter,” she says. “I must have looked at myself in the mirror more than ten times that day. It felt so good… as if a child’s wish had come true.”
Gupta also writes poems, which she occasionally shares on her Twitter and Facebook handles.
Many IAS and IPS officers have secret hobbies and hidden talents. But they are mostly shelved as family secrets or revealed at dinner parties. But social media is changing their way of thinking, giving them some courage and cracking the secrets.
It’s not just singing and dancing, it also involves some acting. Ever since IAS officer Abhishek Singh has been playing, there has been a buzz in the city. she herself In the second season of the Netflix hit, Delhi Crime, His Instagram account offers his three million followers a dazzling glimpse of celebrity and professional encounters. A fashion designer is with Manish Malhotra after a picture of his meeting with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Another reel shows her lip-syncing and dancing to the popular song.slowly’ With Indian rapper Badshah.
“I don’t sing except in the bathroom,” says Singh.
The IAS officer who is currently the Deputy Commissioner of Delhi became popular two years back when he lip-synced and starred in the video of the viral T-Series song, break your heart, She made her acting debut in the short film four fifteen (2020), created entirely by students.
“It’s destiny,” he says.
When Singh was given a chance to act Delhi Crime, he jumped on it. His former boss and the current election commissioner of Delhi, Vijay Kumar Dev, allowed him to take it as long as it did not affect his work.
“Look, everyone is a hero… When we are in front of the mirror in our room, we think of ourselves as heroes. It’s just a matter of getting a chance, I got it,” says Singh.
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juggling of two worlds
The breadth of his experience and exposure informs his ‘hobbies’, but it is not easy to pursue a demanding career with an equally demanding hobby.
“I’ve been writing since I was in college, but it was immature. Time, age, and understanding have made a big difference in my writing. I don’t know what inspires me, but my social interactions are so high That I meet all kinds of people. And this experience matures my writing,” says Municipal Commissioner Mahendra Singh Tanwar, who has vowed to make Ghaziabad a district of Uttar Pradesh. ,awesome ghaziabad,
Although these days he can hardly write two lines. He starts his day at eight in the morning but there is no end time. But even writing those lines helps them. “No matter how much work I do, if I write two lines, I feel energized,” says Singh, who has written more than 10 songs under the name MST Mahi.
One of the two songs released by him this year is a Hindi number, came the show Colors for Valentines Day by Rhythm Studio. Second, a Haryanvi song, Tanwar Ka Unchi HaveliFinished 240 million views on Youtube.
But unlike his peers, Mahendra Singh does not want his ‘hobby’ to be made public. “I want to maintain the strong image of the IAS,” he says.
Not everyone can mess with civil services and a creative career. Some even resign. Especially those who were pushed into the IAS without thinking. Cutting the umbilical cord for services is not an easy decision, but sometimes the stretch can be too strong.
Same happened with NITI Aayog officer Kashish Mittal who resigned Out of the blue in September 2019. Mittal, an AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territory) – 2011 batch cadre officer, was posted as Additional Principal Secretary, NITI Aayog.
The pace of his career made millions of young men and women across India dream of: Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and then the IAS. But for Kashish, it only cemented the distance from his first love, classical music.
He started studying classical music at the age of eight. Live performances were a part of his childhood and college years, but they never deviated from his academic life. He said, ‘I kept on doing stuffing and did well in maths and science. I decided to do engineering and got into IIT-Delhi with an all India rank of four. ,
The next logical step was to appear for the UPSC exam.
“But everyone knows that my life is only music,” says Kashish, who began taking classical music lessons from Professor Harvinder Singh and later from Pandit Yashpal of the Agra gharana.
“It was not easy for me to leave the IAS,” he says. But the inner voice was asking him if he was doing what he really wanted and got louder and louder.
“And then one day I resigned.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)