The last thing you know Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad for, is its love stories. But there was this love story that made news in 2004-2005, about Siddharth Choudhary, from IIMA (then an undergrad) and Nidhi from a college near-by. Then, people said their love story was sweet and that it would weather all storms.

Months later, the couple did weather a huge storm when Nidhi was diagnosed with cancer. The duo came out strong and unscathed from it and this journey is now encompassed in a book titled Eagle Spotted, Message Decoded. The book is written by Siddharth and has just about hit the stands.

Siddharth told Pagalguy that much of his learning in life happened after his graduation from IIMA. There are lots of things you don’t learn at a management school. Life tests you and you have to learn quickly without any prior training. But yes, my MBA degree gave me the confidence to bounce back in life, he said.

Girl met boy

Siddharth first spotted Nidhi at a small time tea stall just along side the IIM-A campus boundary wall. Ram-bhai’s ketli, (Gujarati name for a tea-stall) has always been life line for students of the institute for sutta and chai any time of the day or night. Nidhi was visiting the ketli with some of here college friends. There started the little college romance between the two, Nidhi being a localite and studying in a city college.

After graduation in 2005, Siddharth and Nidhi got married and started living in Mumbai. As part of final placements, Siddharth got placed with Monsanto India Limited in Mumbai in a marketing role. Later he moved to Johnson and Johnson, Mumbai, also in the marketing line.

Life took a U-turn

Life seemed perfect.An IIMA degree to boast about, a plush job and home and a loving wife. But about a year or so after marriage, Nidhi was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour called Medulloblastoma. We were also told it was an aggressive tumour for which there was no cure in allopathy, said Siddharth.

Nidhi’s case got further complicated because the tumour had spread from origin to spine, making her case even more rare. This was the beginning of a rather tumultuous journey for the couple, where they realised that no degree prepares you for these situations.

Nidhi went through agonising pain and constant black-outs. She was finally operated in Mumbai. Post the operation however, Nidhi was moved to Ahmedabad for chemotherapy and post-operative treatment as her parents were there. I travelled every weekend to see her and made it for every doctor’s appointment. But I realised, she needed me more than just these visits. The doctors were giving up on her and I decided to take that one big step, recalls Siddharth.

Good-bye job

The IIMA grad just chucked away his well-paying job and went to Ahmedabad to be with his wife. Everyone told me I was doing the wrong thing. My parents, colleagues and all our friends. But I was adamant. My wife needed me more. When and if things turn out well, my degree will get me another job, I justified to myself, Siddharth told Pagalguy.

In Ahmedabad, Siddharth spent many sleepless nights with Nidhi since the chemotherapy sessions were painful. That was when Siddharth told her stories about IIMA days and the days before IIMA when he was a marine engineer. After a few such sessions Nidhi told me to pen down my little stories in a book. Since I used to wait for Nidhi to sleep first and then sleep myself, I used that time to jot down my stories in my diary. I thought then that my stories were too simple and only meant for Nidhi to cheer-up, said Siddharth.

The coming days turned out to be worse. One after another, the doctors began giving up on Nidhi and at that time I wanted to throw the diary out, recalls Siddharth.

Hope returned

But hope came again. A doctor in Kolkata took up Nidhi’s case and slowly and surely life came back into her body. Regular doctor visits, a strict control on diet and proper medicine intake made Nidhi come back on track. Today after many months, Nidhi is off medicines too. Somewhere during Nidhi’s recovery, I came back to Mumbai and almost immediately got a job again. I guess I owe that to my management degree. Today Nidhi is also in Mumbai and our life has started again, said Siddharth.

MBA degree

There were many lessons from IIM-A that might have helped me during my crisis. It teaches you to deal and live in pressure, race against time and win most times. But one thing that come to my mind when I look back at my years at IIM-A, I feel my course would have been complete if I was also taught life skills. How to deal with people and their inflated egos, how to lead and make people see the bigger picture as you see it. Education needs to go beyond careers, placements and packages.

(Siddharth’s book, Eagle Spotted, Message Decoded, is the story of a marine engineer who on his first job on the ship lacks confidence to face life at sea. The book is on how he learns to gather his strengths and overpower his fears – exactly what he did when he learnt of his wife’s cancer. Siddharth himself is a trained marine engineer who sailed for over three years before joining IIM-A. The book is dedicated to his wife.)