Architechure student who lost arm tops exam she wrote before Jananeswari derailed
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Days before 22 year old shreya sen made a trip to kolkata for a cousin's wedding in may this year, the architecture student form Mumbai had written her fourth year exams and was looking forward to the final year of her course which would help her pursue her passion of conservation architecture.

But the train journey home ended in tragedy with the Jnaneshwari Express she looking derailing near midnapur in analleged Naxalite at take and resulting in sen losing her right arm.
But that did not stop sen from wanting to pursue her dreams, with a bit of help from family,friends and well-wishers who started raising money for an artificial arm.

A few weeks ago, her belife in herself was reaffirmed when the results of her fourth year exams where announced: Sen had topped her college.
"When i regained consciousness many hours after the accident, I was leying on a hospital bed in Kolkata and relized that I had last my right arm, On the same night, in the hospital, I tried to write my name with my left hand, despite the pain caused by the IV needles that were injuected to my wrist. The handwriting was crooked but i knew it then that i could draw with it,"
Sen recalls. Six month on, the student of bhausahep hiray collage of architecure in bandra is on her way to getting a prosthetic arm, custom made for her, with the arm portion coming from the US and the hand portion Scotland.

Sen's friends from college, who started collection money for the artificial arm within days of the accident, have managed to raise a little over Rs10 lakh. The prosthetic arm which is being custom-made by a firm in Delhi, cost Rs19 Lakh. Sen's classmate and close friend Yogita patil said that they received generous donations from trusts, individuals and corporates, among others. "At this rate, it won't be too long before we manage to collect the remaining money". said Yogita.

The one and half months she spent in AMRI Hospital in kolkata gave her enough time to contemplate, said Sen. "When part of your body are fractured and you have no option posal is your mind. You can either create a completely negative outlook with it and go in to depression on try to be optimistic and be thankful that the tragedy was not worse. I chose to do the latter," she said. She returned to college in august and has since been practicing sketching with her left hand. "I think I have mastered to 30 per cent of what I did with my right arm."

Sen is populer amoung her perfessors and classmate for the "accurate and infricate hand sketches" while most students prefer computer based designs these days, "people have asked mo often how I could manage to remain cheerful after losing a part of my body that helped me sketch. I tell them that so long as I am confident of the designs that i create my head, putting them on paper is only secondary. I am greatful that my brain is still intact and functional. Had the brain been damaged, an entire intact body would be been rendered useless, reason the daughter of retried pharmacutial excutive.

The chirpy girl laughs as she talks about her new lifestyle, which includes a new wardrobe full of clothes without hooks or clasps to help here were them easily. Two month ago, an architecture firm in Andheri saw her forth year work on conservarion architecture and offered her an intership. Impressed by her work, the firm sent her on a seven-day trip to kolkata to study the architecture of its the old temples.

For her final year thesis, Sen wants to develop a model of a spriritual tourist centre in Varanasi. And she thinks her disability should not deter prospective employers from considering hiring her. "I know that my strengths are way stronger than my weaknesses and would love to work in a place that would realize the same about me," she says.

Input saravana.R VIA mobile