Curated By: Sukanya Nandy
Last Updated: October 09, 2023, 09:42 IST
Vikrant Massey (R) plays IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma (L) in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s movie ’12th Fail’ (File Photo)
12th Fail: Starring Vikrant Massey and Palak Lalwani, the film delves into the lives of IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma and IRS officer Shraddha Joshi
Adapted from Anurag Pathak’s bestseller, producer and director Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s ’12th Fail’ is set to release on October 27. Starring Vikrant Massey and Palak Lalwani, the film delves into the lives of IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma and IRS officer Shraddha Joshi. The movie draws inspiration from several real-life tales of UPSC civil service exam aspirants.
Apart from Massey and Lalwani, the film will also star Vikas Divyakirti, who cleared UPSC CSE on his first attempt in 1996. As per reports, he will be playing himself in the movie. Divyakirti worked at the Ministry of Home Affairs for a year following which he resigned to start his own coaching centre — Drishti IAS, which is located in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar, where a major portion of the film was shot.
Who are IPS officer Manoj Kumar Sharma and IRS officer Shraddha Joshi?
A resident of Morena district of Madhya Pradesh, Sharma was born in a very poor family. He passed with a third division in class 9 and class 10. In the class 12 board examinations, he failed in all the subjects except Hindi. However, later an incident took place in Manoj’s life and it changed his world.
Manoj Kumar Sharma fell in love with Shraddha Joshi in class 12. Since he failed class 12, he was not able to propose to Joshi. Sharma was scared but after giving it a lot of thought, he proposed to Joshi and surprisingly she accepted his proposal. While proposing to the girl, he said, “If you say yes, then I will turn the world around.”
Following this, Manoj Sharma started his preparation for UPSC CSE. Shraddha Joshi supported him a lot. Sharma had to struggle a lot on every front to become an IPS. He drove a tempo to earn some money and sometimes even had to sleep with beggars many times in the night. He also worked at a library in Delhi which turned out very useful for him. In the library, he read about the books and personalities of many famous writers from Maxim Gorky and Abraham Lincoln to poet Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh.
Manoj Kumar Sharma took the UPS CSE exam four times but he failed in the first three attempts. It was in the fourth attempt that he managed to crack the exam with an All India Rank (AIR) of 121. He became an IPS officer and is currently posted as an Additional Commissioner in Mumbai Police. IPS Manoj Kumar Sharma has a domineering style because of which some even call him Singham and Simba. Later, Manoj married his girlfriend, Shraddha Joshi, who is an IRS officer now.
