45) Campus life

Aparna Gupta was just another fun loving girl in the campus at FMS, Delhi hopping from one discotheque to another and attending campus festivals across the country. Anyway for a first year management student, the world is a theatre of fun and frolic. Once you make it to a top B school, networking becomes more important than scholarliness and it is only in the final year there is a tension of getting a good offer.

Aparna, an expert guitar player was much in demand for the cultural shows in the campus. The students would meet on weekends at the amphitheatre adorned with dazzling neon lights and dance away to music. Wine flowed as much as cigarettes and for these boys and girls this was the first taste of freedom.

Life without responsibility is a never ending party and these guys knew how to live life to the brim. Taking their girlfriends for a spin in a bike or car, these wards would frequent movies, pubs, restaurants with a gusto only the young can engage.

Aparna started to become intimate with Nitin, the bureaucrat’s son and they made quite a pair in the campus: in the classrooms, library or at the mess. Things trundled along till this ghastly news from back home.

The cell phone jumped to life as her mother blurted in a terrified voice,” Aparna, your dad met with an accident and he’s at Jaslok Hospital. It really looks bad as his car banged head-on to a trailer. He’s just been rushed to the operation theatre and I am scared”.

Aparna who has having her routine after dinner dinner gulab jamun rushed to the airport and only see the last flight depart at 11:30 PM. She waited at the airport and took the first Kingfisher flight to Mumbai while cheering her mom up.

More bad news awaited her at the hospital and the doctors had amputated her dad’s right hand and the rest of body in fractures and badge. Dr. Mehta was forthright,” it’s a miracle that your father has survived but the recovery is going to be a long process and he may be bedridden for close to 6 months”.

Aparna contacted her institute and wanted leave for a long time. In fact, she even pleaded that she would happily repeat the course if they guaranteed her place in the next batch as she wanted to spend her time with dad.

In such an emergency, the first thing that goes out of the window is reason as panic takes over.

Never had any family seen a more committed daughter as she arranged for the physiotherapist and monitored his progress. He was heart broken at the stump at the right hand but then life still needed to be lived. That depression alone took a couple of months reconciling as the mother and daughter served his every need. Aparna soon learnt to bandage him and massage the limbs. The FMS was now completely forgotten as nothing mattered than setting the home front right.

After 3 months when the situation at home stabilized, she reported back to the institute. In her absence one semester had lapsed and friends pitched in to bring her up to date. Within a month, she caught up with the rest and even the institute went soft on her by arranging special exams.

Yesterday, she got a placement in Morgan Stanley and she sounded so excited on the phone. All her classmates just gave her a standing ovation as they reassembled for the HRM class.