Dental student glitters with seven medals

Swati Anand | Times News Network

Bangalore: When you ask Sharanya Ajit Kumar how she managed to get seven gold medals from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), she smiles modestly. “I’ve always focussed on doing my best. Ranks and medals are just a byproduct,” she says.

By the looks of it, this student of Government Dental College (GDC) has quite a few ‘by-products’ to accommodate. She has been topping her college through the four years and secured first ranks in at least two subjects every year, making it a tally of 13. Sharanya has stood first on two occasions in RGUHS through the four years.

And while she dominated the awards ceremony at her college convocation on Wednesday, at the university convocation to be held in early 2007, she will walk away with medals for oral anatomy, oral pathology, dental materials, community dentistry and conservative dentistry, apart from overall merit for third and final year.

That’s not all. The Indian Association of Periodontics recently commemorated her at Pune for academic excellence in the subject.

“She’s been a firstranker all through school,” says her proud father Ajit Kumar, an ISRO employee. Sharanya graduated from Kendriya Vidyalaya, NAL, with an impressive score of 93 per cent.

Her mother, insurance agent Shakina, doesn’t recall a single day of prodding their daughter to study. “I think it was an inborn trait in her to be organised,” she says.

It’s this trait that has been Sharanya’s key to success. “I study bit by bit every day. So I’m never tensed or overworked when it’s exam time,” she says.

Focus is evidently another strong point. “I began weighing my career options seriously after my 10th and zeroed in on dentistry because I thought it was an upcoming field,” she says. So while she could opt for a medical seat with a CET rank of 1,100, she went ahead with dentistry. “At least half the people in my class are here because they did not get a medical seat. But the step-sisterly treatment towards BDS is changing.”

When not studying, Sharanya’s a regular mallrat, who loves watching movies. “I saw Umrao Jaan recently — it was so slow and weepy,” she frowns. A trained Bharatanatyam dancer, she’s been dabbling with salsa recently. At college, she was the cultural secretary and general secretary of the student body council. And she usually curls up in bed with a racy novel by John Grisham.

Next on cards is a post-graduate degree. “I would like to get into any government college, hopefully back to GDC.” And while she plans to work in a multi-speciality hospital and then, in a private clinic, she eventually wants to teach. “It would be great if I could be a faculty member in a dental college by the day and run my practise in the evening."