The Man Behind the Blog
Hi there, Internet friend. I'm Sumant Singh Dangi, the dude who runs this blog. If you're the kind of person who gets excited when people talk about books, literature, travel, cricket, anime, fiction, poetry, current affairs, sports, or UPSC, then you're at the right place. Buckle your seatbelt. It's going to be a crazy ride.
First of all, let's sit down and answer the existential question: who am I?
Well, for starters, I'm a writer. After writing massive stacks of essays and academic pieces in high school, I entered college desperately wanting to try out new things. At an Indian engineering college known as SVNIT Surat, I found my way into both the writing club (Renesa) and the literary club (LAC). These were the laboratories where my real experiments began (not with science, but with speaking and writing). I started writing articles for Renesa, poems and cricket articles in my hostel room, and gradually learnt public speaking and gained confidence in LAC. Even though I'm still developing myself as a writer and learning as I go along, I have truckloads of experiences, knowledge, and stories that I'm incredibly excited to share with you guys in the upcoming weeks, months, and years, in the form of both blog posts and videos.
Go ahead and explore the rest of my work:
- SVNIT Tales Series
- Renesa Posts
- Fiction Posts
- Poetry Posts
- Sports Posts
- UPSC CSE Guidance
- My YouTube Videos
- Podcasts I've featured in (I wrote & voiced the "Welcome to Renesa Unscripted", "2021: Forecast", "The K9 Ghostbusters Initiative - A Halloween Special" episodes)
- Shows I've featured in
Or keep on reading about me and this website below:
How I Started Writing
When my first cricket article about Team India got published on Sportskeeda's official website, I freaked out in my hostel room, bouncing up and down in my chair at midnight as my roommate watched on. When my first report article about SVNIT's cricket festival (MMNCT 2019) got published after several days of running around collecting cricket scores and photos, I was relieved. The positive feedback on that article kept me going and assured me that the hard work does pay off.
I wrote more poems, published them on StoryMirror, wrote more cricket pieces, published them on Sportskeeda, wrote more articles and stories, and published them on Renesa and my Instagram accounts. Somewhere along the way, it finally clicked: this is what I was made for. I needed room for creative expression in my life. Writing and content creation offered unlimited opportunities to express myself and I soon found myself pulled into orbit around this world of content creation.
My first article that ever got published - "India vs New Zealand: India's middle overs run-scoring problem in ODIs" got published on Sportskeeda's official website
Travelling the World
When people ask me the question "where are you from?", I prepare myself mentally for the facial expressions I'm about to witness and calmly respond: "do you want the short version or the long version?" For your sake, let's stick with the short version today.
I was born in Gaya, India. When my dad got a new job, I moved with my family to Delhi, India. We then moved to Luanda, Angola. After spending two years there, we moved to Geneva, Switzerland. 3 years later, we moved to Ankara, Turkey. 4 years later, we moved back to Delhi. 3 years later, we moved to Paris, France. 4 years later, we moved back to Delhi. 2 years later, we moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And 5 months later, we moved back to Delhi.
That, my friend, is the short version. The long version of this story will be told in a future post or video.
My Relationship with Sports
I can't leave out the thing that brings joy, and often, important life lessons - sports. There are 3 sports that I absolutely adore: cricket, running, and rugby. I've played badminton, volleyball, and football at various stages too, but never really stuck with them.
I fell in love with cricket during the 2011 ODI World Cup that India won and I haven't looked back since. I love everything about cricket - watching it on TV, playing it with my friends in the park (whether it's Delhi, Ankara, or Paris), and talking about it endlessly with friends and on cricket shows or podcasts. I was devastated after India lost the 2023 ODI Cricket World Cup final to Australia after such a dominant winning streak up till then, and stopped watching cricket after it. However, I fell back in love with it after India won the 2024 T20 Cricket World Cup after beating South Africa in a thriller in the final.
I am also an athlete who does long-distance running. It began on a brisk evening at the American School of Paris when I chose to go for cross country tryouts rather than football. I put the football cleats I had brought back in my bag and headed out with the cross-country aspirants to our running course - Domaine Nationale de Saint Cloud. After that, running became a constant in my life and I continued running even in college, regularly practicing with the Athletics team in SVNIT. I finally completed a half-marathon in college, running 21.1 km non-stop for 2 hours and 55 minutes.
I also played on the Varsity Rugby team at the American School of Paris for a whole season in 11th grade. When I threw a perfect spinning pass to my friend during a training session, I realized that I wanted to keep playing, get better, and discover this beautiful sport that I once assumed to be only for hooligans and jocks. Although I only played rugby for those 3-4 months in that season, I learned a lot from it and made memories for life.
My Tryst with UPSC
On the last day of 9th grade in BGS International Public School, Dwarka, Delhi, I was bidding farewell to a friend named Manit Sahu. He was also an MEA student and was moving to South Africa since his dad got a new posting there. We were talking about what we wanted to do later on in life. We both talked about how we would try for UPSC, for the foreign service. Manit and I both knew that after a life of growing up and living all across the world thanks to our parents' jobs, it was impossible not to want that life for ourselves.
Since my father was already working in the Ministry of External Affairs, he encouraged me to give the UPSC and at least try to get into the Indian Foreign Service throughout my childhood. However, in high school, I grew fond of science and wanted to study Chemistry and invent something that would rid the world of pollution. Let's just say I wanted to study and work in the field of environmental science/engineering.
After just a few months of studying Chemical Engineering for my Bachelor of Technology degree at SVNIT Surat, I got a rude reality check. Chemical Engineering was neither as fun nor interesting as I thought it would be, and there definitely wasn't enough world-saving potential here either. I soon began losing interest in my course material, and the more college dragged on, the more I developed an overwhelming conviction that I couldn't do a job in this field and would end up hating it.
So, I started searching for alternatives, something I actually liked. Writing on my own and in Renesa triggered a sense of discovery in me and I began wanting to pursue writing full-time as a career after college. However, the option of UPSC was always at the back of my mind, albeit vague.
So, after college ended, upon my father's insistence, I did a lot of research and soul-searching and found out more about the UPSC and the Indian Foreign Service. The more I learnt about it, the stronger my conviction grew to pursue it. I had all the necessary skills that an Indian diplomat needed to have. All I was missing was the knowledge needed to pass the UPSC exam. Some things are only impossible in people's heads.
So, I decided to keep writing part-time in my free time and began my preparation to run the marathon of UPSC by enrolling in an online UPSC coaching course by Byju's. I later joined MisFits by Naman Shrivastava Sir and also UnderStand UPSC by Satyam Jain Sir. I am working towards fulfilling my dream of serving my country and the world as an Indian Foreign Service officer.
One day, you will hear about Indian Ambassador Sumant Singh Dangi and think, "hey, I know this guy".
I cleared the 2024 UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination held on 16 June, 2024 and was fortunate enough to find myself amongst the top 14,627 candidates in India who were selected to write the 2024 CSE Mains.
I gave the 2024 UPSC Civil Services (Main) Examination held from 20 September, 2024 to 29 September, 2024, but did not clear it.
I am preparing for the UPSC CSE 2025 now.