Greetings everyone!

This is Ujjwal Dobhal from Dehradun, Devbhoomi Uttarakhand. Today I will share my experience of getting recommended back to back 3 times from the Service Selection Boards ( 1 AFSB on 25 January 2021, 24 SSB Bangalore on 8 May 2021, 1 AFSB again on 11 June 2021) after being conferenced out 4 times in all my 4 initial SSB attempts.

Being from the Garhwal region, I had immense respect for the forces. Listening to stories of the courageous army men, their adventurous lifestyle, I was naturally attracted towards the uniform. I did my graduation with BSc.CS(Hons.) from CVS college, Delhi University, joined NCC, music society and worked to improve efficiency, build good interpersonal and organizing skills, gave efforts for my initial two SSBs of TES n then AFCAT but was not able to achieve my goal. I brainstormed, analyzed the mistakes, and realized that I needed to really work on my knowledge part as it led to low confidence during my GD, Lecturette and IO. Also, I was not happy with my psych test as I used to write vague unorganized stories.

Firstly, I started observing myself, my actions, behaviour individually and in a group, and apart from that I also started improving my physical fitness, and paid more attention to studies to clear the IMA cut-off in the next CDS. I started taking guidance from the Georgians Defence Academy in my college third year during the lockdown of 2020. Both KP sir and Deepak sir were real mentors to me, who made me understand the intricacies of the process. I was particularly happy with the approach for psych tests that Deepak sir advised. For TAT, I kept the pictures around my own life experiences and areas of interest, for GDs and lecturettes, I improved my knowledge on various subjects via newspapers and articles, videos on online sources on a daily basis, and tested it via the daily lecturette sessions and GDs. Ample mock interviews were done, and I figured out questions that bothered me, thought about them and prepared answers mentally to plugged all the loopholes. My mentors gave me regular feedback on my performance. Georgians didn't just provide me guidance for the SSB, but it provided me with the right environment, where I met an amazing, motivated set of people working towards the same goal. I worked a lot on myself but still couldn't make it in the next 2 CDS OTA SSBs in Allahabad and Kapurthala. Still, I felt that I am on the right path and the recommendation will come soon.

Now the interesting part is that on 17 Jan 21 I got conferenced out from Kapurthala and had my reporting on 21 Jan in Dehradun for AFCAT entry, just 3 days apart. I being disheartened decided to not go there and work harder for my IMA attempt this time. However, KP sir like a father came and consoled me, made me realize that I was taking undue pressure of performance. He motivated me to go and give the attempt just as a mock for my IMA SSB without any worries. I, complied with his suggestion, went to enjoy the process for 5 days, and as luck would have it, got recommended for AFCAT flying branch. From then on I haven't looked back, have kept on improving as a person, mentally and physically, and been recommended back to back 3 times.

I want to thank all the amazing people and experiences in my life who made it possible for me to realize my dream of joining the defence, my parents, my school St.Joseph's Academy, my teachers, my mates, NCC seniors, the Georgians Defence Academy and my amazing mentors.

All the best to all the aspirants who are reading this and see the same dream as I do. Keep working hard, keep the spirits high, be humble. Do not worry, if you are passionate enough, success is around the corner!

Regards.