At around eight years old, Ajay R Raj lost most of his eyesight.For a child growing up in a small town in Kerala’s Western Ghats, between Kozhikode and Wayanad, it could have narrowed the world considerably. His family, too, was not one of privilege. His father was an autorickshaw driver and his mother a homemaker. Meeting household expenses while funding their son’s education was a struggle.But somewhere between the financial limitations at home and the gradual loss of his eyesight, Raj found something that gave him access to a much larger world: books. In Class 5, he discovered a small library in his town. For the boy from the countryside with partial visual impairment, it became much more than a place to borrow books.“Coming from the countryside and due to my partial visual impairment, the library and the books were my sole window to the outside world,” Raj wrote in a first-person account published by YourStory in 2022. “I read voraciously on different works of literature and it started shaping my life,” he wrote.It was around this time that another dream took shape. “Since fifth grade, it was my dream to be able to study at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi,” he recalled in the YourStory account.Years later, Raj would not only make it to St Stephen’s College but go on to pursue postgraduate studies in English literature, teach at a college and repeatedly sit for one of India’s toughest competitive examinations.In March 2026, after five attempts, he secured All India Rank 109 in the UPSC Civil Services Examination, moving significantly up from his earlier rank of 730. But the rank is perhaps the easiest part of his story to tell. The harder part began when he was still a child.
Ajay R Raj lost most of his eyesight as a child.
When his eyesight began to fade
According to The Economic Times, Raj’s eyesight deteriorated when he was around eight or nine, leaving him unable to see clearly and eventually causing him to lose most of his eyesight. The report also notes that his father, an autorickshaw driver, supported the family and his son’s education despite financial difficulty.For Raj, education was not something he took for granted. It was something he actively fought to hold on to. After Class 10, his desire to learn pushed him to leave his hometown for the city. But another obstacle was waiting. He had studied in a Malayalam-medium school and was trying to enter the CBSE system.“I was utterly shattered when I learnt that the new school was wary about admitting a Malayalam medium school educated boy into the CBSE stream,” Raj wrote. “They tried to dissuade me from joining, but that didn’t deter me.”The transition was difficult. He was away from home, adjusting to hostel life and the pressures of a new city while simultaneously trying to prove himself academically. His answer was to study. “Right after school, I used to run back to the hostel and immerse myself in studies,” he wrote.He went from being one among the top 10 students to becoming the topper. By Class 12, he had topped the Humanities stream and set a new record at his school. He also secured the first rank nationally in the PwD category and eighth in the general category, according to his account. The boy who had once found a window to the world in a small library was now preparing to walk through a much bigger door.
From a small Kerala town to St Stephen’s
Raj eventually reached St Stephen’s College in Delhi, the institution he had dreamed about since Class 5. College brought a different set of challenges. He was studying literature, a subject he loved, but his visual impairment made reading and comprehending texts difficult.“Although I was passionate about literature, I had to encounter N number of difficulties in comprehending the texts, internalising the logic of literature,” he wrote. This time, however, he did not face those difficulties alone. “With the help of my friends, I surmounted such hurdles and became the university rank holder in the PWD category,” Raj wrote.His academic journey took him beyond the classroom. He wrote about the exposure he received at St Stephen’s, including an internship with Harvard University and qualifying for the first round of the Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford.Yet, somewhere along the way, his ambitions moved beyond his own education. “My interest in public service- both as a beneficiary and as an agent of change–inspired me to pursue civil service,” he wrote. He also described his motivation as a desire to contribute to the society that had shaped him. The dream was now the UPSC.
The examination that refused to be conquered easily
The civil services examination did not yield immediately.Raj’s journey included attempts where he could not clear the preliminary stage and others where he fell short at the mains stage, according to The Economic Times. Financial pressure also meant that preparation could not always be his only occupation. He worked as an English teacher and taught cultural studies at a college while continuing his UPSC preparation.The setbacks accumulated, but so did the experience. Eventually, Raj secured AIR 730 in the UPSC examination and was selected for the Railway Service. For someone who had grown up watching his father work as an autorickshaw driver to support the family, a government service was already a significant achievement.But Raj had another destination in mind. He chose to attempt the civil services examination again. And again. And again.By the time he appeared for his fifth attempt, he had already experienced both failure and success. He had cleared the examination once. He had a service in hand. Yet he was still not ready to let go of his IAS dream. “This was my fifth attempt and my third serious one,” Raj told the media after securing AIR 109, as reported by The Times of India.His approach to UPSC had also evolved. “I viewed UPSC preparation not merely as a test, but as a journey for skill development,” he said. “Even if one doesn’t make it, the skills gained would be invaluable elsewhere,” Raj added. That mindset perhaps explains why the earlier result did not become the end of his story.
AIR 109, but the journey started much earlier
In the latest examination, Raj jumped from his earlier AIR 730 to AIR 109. The result put him closer to the IAS dream he had continued to pursue even after entering the Railway Service. He has credited his family, academic mentors and the preparation ecosystem at LEAD IAS Academy in Thiruvananthapuram for supporting him through the journey.“My preparation was built around the mechanism developed by the academy, bolstered by constant support of my seniors and juniors,” he previously told The Times of India. But long before coaching centres and civil services preparation became part of his life, there was a small library in Kerala.There was a boy who could not see the world clearly but found a way to explore it through literature. There was a father driving an autorickshaw and trying, despite financial difficulties, to keep his son’s education going. There was a child who moved away from home, struggled to adapt to a new school and refused to accept that coming from a Malayalam-medium background should decide what he could become.There were difficult books, supportive friends, academic achievements, unsuccessful UPSC attempts and, eventually, a first selection that still did not feel like the final destination. Looking back at his journey in his 2022 YourStory account, Raj had already articulated what education meant to him.“For any vulnerable section, education is the best tool for upward mobility,” he wrote. And then came a line that now reads almost like a promise he made to himself: “I know my journey is not over yet. Destinations are still remaining with the support of the organisation.” Four years later, his AIR 109 result is another milestone in that journey. For Raj, the story was never simply about clearing an examination despite impaired vision.It began much earlier- with a family that had limited means, a father whose work was behind the wheel of an autorickshaw, a child whose eyesight was fading, and a small library that gave him a way to see beyond all of it.The books did not restore his eyesight. They did something else. They gave him a vision of where he could go.
