Letter from IIT Kharagpur Bay Area Chapter President, Thyaga Vasudevan ('96)
July 5, 2021
Below we share a letter that was sent out by IIT KGP Bay Area Chapter President, Thyaga Vasudevan ('96):
Dear Friends,
Hope you are all doing well and keeping safe and healthy. I am reaching out to you today with some mixed feelings.
First, I wanted to wish all the members a very Happy July 4th - hope the spirit of freedom, liberty, opportunity and success that this land has given all of us continue to prosper.
Secondly, with a heavy heart, I wanted to reach out to you for some urgent help for a couple of our IIT Kharagpur alumni. We lost our dearest friend Vinayak Srivastava (batch of 1996) on 8th May 2021 to the raging Covid pandemic. Vinayak leaves behind his mother and two wonderful teenage children Aditi Srivastava and Amogh Srivastava. The children’s mother Madhu (also an IIT KGP alumni - batch of 1996) had passed away a few years back and today both the kids have no parents to be looked after by.
It was shocking and heartbreaking for us, the news of losing Vinayak. He was only 45 years old. He had tested COVID positive on 20th April and was admitted in Fortis hospital in New Delhi. Though he fought bravely, his condition worsened eventually and he was in the ICU for 3 weeks; it’s extremely sad that his family didn’t get a chance to say goodbye while he breathed his last.
We, friends of Vinayak & Madhu, on behalf of his family are raising funds to secure a financial foundation for both kids’ education for over a period of the next 6-8 years. Our goal is to raise INR 1.5 Crores (USD 200K) to provide a solid foundation for the future education needs of both the children.
Right now, we have only reached 19% of our goal - we highly encourage the alumni to donate for this noble cause. Link to donate is here: https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-aditi-and-amogh.
Thank you and stay blessed y'all,
Thyaga
IIT KGP Bay Area President