In the cramped lanes and crowded bookstores of Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar, a well-known hub for civil services coaching, Hindi seems to be getting the short shrift.

While the shelves brim with up-to-date study material for English-medium aspirants, keeping pace with the changing demands of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), for those who think, write, and dream in Hindi, however, the choices are sparse, often reduced to dated translations and fragmented notes.

According to several aspirants, it is a far cry from the late 1980s when Ashok Singh and his institute, Meridian, transformed this small pocket of north Delhi into a sanctuary for students from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Soon, A.K. Mishra of Chanakya IAS Academy and Shashank Atom of ALS Coaching joined the movement, creating a wave of success that established Mukherjee Nagar as the coaching hub for Hindi-medium aspirants.