Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagouda
By Shankar Raj*
Bengaluru: “Get my son’s body, I want to see him at least once for the last time,” said Shekargouda, the distraught father of 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagouda, who was killed in Kharkiv Tuesday.
Shekargouda has appealed to the Indian government to get the body so that the last rites can be performed. However, no assurance came from the External Affairs Ministry that was preoccupied with evacuating students from war-ravaged Kharkiv.
“We are making our best efforts, but since it is a war zone, it is very difficult to get the body back for now”, a source said.
Also read: Indian student killed in Ukraine
Meanwhile, Shekargouda took on the Indian education system. “My son was very talented. He got 97% in class 10 and PUC. But he did not get a medical seat in a government college here,” he told the media.
He said a medical seat in a private college India would have cost him a bomb. “I found that I would have to spend anywhere between Rs 85 lakh and Rs 1 crore. That’s when I decided to send him to Ukraine, but it has proved far more costly,” said Shekargouda.
“My biggest regret will always be that many students who scored less marks than my son got medical seats in government colleges. This is the state of our education system,” he said while urging the government to take over all private medical colleges.
Meanwhile, Naveen’s teachers remembered him as a brilliant student and kind youngster. He studied till II PU in Nanjangud near Mysuru. “The last time he visited our school was about six months ago,” Mahesh G, his class teacher at Government Adarsha school in Nanjangud was quoted in the media. He was the school topper, scoring 605/ 625.
*Shankar Raj is former Editor of The New Indian Express, Karnataka and Kerala, and writes regularly on current affairs.
