Creativity in uniform

These civil servants are excelling in areas as diverse as music videos and mountaineering

- PUJA AWASTHI

IAS officer Abhishek Singh blazed into internet stardom recently with the release of a music video which has so far garnered over 50 million views. Morphing from an officer of a service often perceived as stuffy and dull to someone who is being described as “too hot”, “super fantabulous” and “phenomenal” has been quite a ride. In the video of the song ‘Dil Tod Ke’ (after breaking my heart), Singh plays a jilted lover riding resolutely to his ex-girlfriend’s engagement with a gun tucked into the waist band of his jeans. While the role has been criticised by some for its underlying misogyny, Singh disagrees.

“The concept is dramatic but the idea is to leave a positive message that one should not ruin one’s life over such an incident,” he says. For the song, he drew from his own experience of being dumped by a woman and then throwing himself into preparing for the civil services exam which he cleared in 2011. Singh’s initiation into acting, however, happened earlier this year in a short film, the psychological thriller Chaar Pandrah. But the first offer he got was to play an IAS officer in the soon-to-be-released season two of the Netflix drama, Delhi Crime.