The Seat on the Edge

Waiting for one seat to open

The fall of 2004 changed the direction of my life. I was packing for UC Berkeley, telling myself I was taking a mid-career break to learn research properly. But even as my mind drifted towards California, my heart stayed in Sevagram.

Ashwini had just finished his 12th standard and was preparing for the MGIMS entrance test. For a faculty member’s child, that exam carries a special kind of pressure. You grow up on campus. The hospital corridors feel familiar. Teachers are not distant names, they are people you have greeted for years. And yet, if you don’t make it, the disappointment feels public. The whispers travel faster than the result.

That summer, our house in Vivekanand Colony felt like a pressure cooker. Biology notes lay open on the dining table. Physics formulas stared from the walls. Everyone walked softly, as if noise itself might spoil his concentration. We decided to send him to Nagpur for coaching. It was not easy, but it was necessary.

We were fortunate. Mr Raja Khapre opened his home to Ashwini and gave him a quiet corner in a busy city. My elder sister Pushpa, in Giripeth, became his refuge. Whenever the coaching centre exhausted him, he would go to her for a meal and a little comfort. A plate of her food did what no motivational talk could.

The Gandhi paper

The MGIMS entrance test is unlike any other. It has the usual three-hour paper of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. But it also has a second paper that catches most students off guard: an essay-based test on the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi.

You cannot cram for it. You have to understand what Gandhi stood for, and why Sevagram still carries his shadow.

Before I left for Berkeley, I became Ashwini’s weekend tutor for that paper. Our Saturdays were spent with My Experiments with Truth, not with cricket or movies. We spoke about satyagraha, the Dandi March, khadi, and what it meant to live simply in a complicated world. I was teaching him for an exam, yes, but I was also trying to pass on something deeper.

The verdict: third on the waitlist

When the results came, the news hit us hard. Ashwini had done well, but not well enough.

The staff quota had only two seats. Ashwini stood third.

In admissions, being third when there are only two seats is its own kind of torture. Close enough to taste it, far enough to lose sleep. He had also missed the cut in the open category. The house fell quiet. Nobody said much, because there was nothing sensible to say.

We did not have the luxury of grieving for long. We needed a Plan B. Fergusson College in Pune offered him admission in BSc Biotechnology. It was a good course, a good college, and a respectable path. But for a boy who had grown up watching ward rounds and treating a stethoscope like a toy, it felt like a detour.

He left for Pune, trying to look brave. We pretended to be cheerful. Inside, we were all waiting.

The call to Berkeley

I flew to the US with a guilt that sat stubbornly in my chest. I kept asking myself the same question: was I chasing my own growth while my son’s future hung in the balance?

A few weeks into the term, a seat in the open category fell vacant. Someone withdrew. The waitlist shifted. Ashwini was next.

The call came from home. It was Bhavana. Her voice was trembling, not with worry this time, but with relief.

“He got in,” she said. “The seat opened up. Ashwini is coming back from Pune.”

I sat down. I don’t remember what I was doing before that call, but I remember the moment after it. The relief was physical. Across oceans and poor phone lines, we held on to that one sentence like a blessing.

Our son was coming home.

The financial scramble

The happiness lasted a few minutes. Then reality returned.

To secure the seat, the fees had to be paid immediately. In 2004, money could not be moved with a click. There was no NEFT from a phone, no instant transfer. We were not sitting on spare cash either. Most of our savings were in mutual funds.

And I was 13,000 kilometres away.

Bhavana had to do everything. She arranged the redemption, hunted down the agent, searched for the physical papers, filled forms, signed, re-signed, and then travelled to Amravati to submit documents at the main branch. The waiting was the worst part. Every day mattered. Every delay threatened the admission.

The cheque came in time. She deposited the draft with a day to spare.

Only then did we breathe.

The solo general

Looking back, Ashwini fought the exam. But Bhavana fought the year.

Amrita was still small then, in third standard, needing homework help, routine, and reassurance. Ashwini had gone through the full emotional cycle of hope, disappointment, hostel life in Pune, and sudden return. And Bhavana was holding the home steady through all of it.

At the hospital, she was also dealing with the chaos of launching the Hospital Information System. Anyone who has introduced a new HIS knows what it means: software glitches, angry staff, resistance, delays, and daily firefighting. Her workdays stretched to ten or twelve hours, and even after she returned home, the problems followed her like a shadow.

On top of that, she was preparing her own passport and visa so she could visit me in Berkeley. One more queue, one more form, one more deadline.

People talk about work-life balance as if it is a neat solution. That year taught us something else. For a working woman, balance is not a pose you achieve. It is a constant act of holding, adjusting, and not letting anything fall.

When Ashwini finally wore his white coat and walked into the anatomy hall of MGIMS, it was his victory. But the foundation had been laid by Bhavana’s quiet resilience. She kept the roof in place, even when everything felt unsteady.

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