Prasad juggled UPSC preparations with 12-hr workdays to take up a job which pays Rs 9 lakh less per annum than his current oneWhen the mobile phone rang around noon, he thought it was a fellow software developer calling to discuss issues related to coding. But it turned out to be a game-changing call. B M Laxmi Prasad the techie was going to be a bureaucrat.An employee of Hewlett Packard’s (HP) Mahadevapura campus, when Prasad was informed that he had cleared the UPSC exams, he was elated to know that his multi-tasking had paid off. “When my friend called to inform I had cleared the exam, I was on the top of the world. It was the sheer trappings of power that lured me to take up the civil services examination. While my brain was all about programming from 9 am to 9 pm, I would return home and devote two hours every day to preparing for the examination,” says a beaming Prasad.A resident of Kasturinagar and an alumni of R V Engineering College, Prasad has secured 151st rank in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams, the results of which were announced on Thursday.Prasad, 26,has been working with HP as systems software engineer 5 since 2009, drawing a salary of Rs 1.1 lakh per month. Like any other techie, Prasad’s life was all about tight deadlines and racing the clock. Yet, after putting in 12 to 14 hours at the office, he never lost sight of his dream. “I had no knowledge of UPSC till I met a few friends at the work place. I was inspired by a friend who was preparing for KPSC, but he advised me to focus on the UPSC,” he says.His role models were his friend Deepak Singh’s parents, former DG & IGP Dr Ajai Kumar Singh and former chief secretary Tara Ajai Singh. “When my friends and I would visit them, Dr Singh used to motivate us to aim for the UPSC; he would tell us it would offer a rare chance to serve society,” says Prasad, adding he was also impressed with the respect the Singhs commanded. “I decided I must take up civil services as a career and started working in that direction.”If deciding on the destination was easy, the journey proved just as challenging. “Working in a high-deliverable industry like software, expectations are high and one is always rushing to meet project deadlines. I used to leave home at 9 am and return only by 9 pm. I used to get only two-three hours in the night. As I had to start from scratch, much of my time was initially spent in understanding the subjects and exam pattern.” During weekends, he spent all his waking hours poring into books. With no time to chill like his peers, his only stress-busters were plays at Rangashankara or Jagruthi.Prasad says his family backed him through all the ups and downs. His sister is in Australia, while his dad works as general manager at IMM Ispat in Hospet, his mom is with Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Ltd.He says his seniors at HP too were very supportive. “My team manager was kind enough to give me two months of unpaid leave when I was preparing for the mains.” When he realised he couldn’t juggle both work and study, he put in his papers, but his company gave him the option of working part-time. Prasad says he will resign in a week, and this time there will be no going back.Right now though he is basking in the glory of the moment. “I was very disappointed when I was rejected in the first attempt. I had reached the interview level but I could not get any ranking.” After some hard introspection, he decided to focus on interview presentation skills and took tips from retired bureaucrats.Though he had opted for foreign service as his first preference followed by IAS and IPS, he is not so sure given his rank.Meanwhile, he will also have to contend with a huge plunge in his salary from the current Rs 13 lakh per annum to about Rs 4 lakh in his new role.