Fighting for life, she finds time to pursue design hobby

AHMEDABAD: Sitting amid bright coloured beads turned into trendy strings and fashionable jewellery, Nidhi Choudhary flashed an ear to ear smile as she launched her maiden exhibition.
The smile was almost infectious, coming as it did from a fighter, who has been waging a battle for life for over a year now.
Diagnosed with brain tumour a year ago, Choudhary was operated in Mumbai.As a part of the procedure, the tumour after removal was sent for biopsy, and Choudhary was detected with a rare type of cancer among adults, Medulloblastoma. Post-operation, Choudhary returned to the city where her parents live.
"Life has been a roller coaster ride since then. Post-operation, the treatment and the chemotherapy doses were tough. I would often forget things and black-outs were frequent. I was barely able to do anything, let alone sketch or read. But once the chemotherapy was over, I started feeling a little better," said Choudhary, a graduate from LD College of Arts.
Soon after completing her BA (Psychology), Nidhi had got married to Siddharth Choudhary, a 2005-batch graduate of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). The couple lived in Mumbai, where Siddharth was working with an MNC. After Nidhi's treatment began in Mumbai, Siddharth quit his job to be with his wife during her hour of crisis.
"Nidhi says that since she is feeling better, she has taken up designing again. I, however, feel that since she is able to design again, she must be feeling better," said Siddharth, who recently finished writing a book on the instances of his life while he was a marine engineer.
"I have travelled a lot with my parents. As a kid too, I used to collect things like shells, colourful stones or any other interesting nik-naks. Earlier I used to use hooks, loops and other raw material from my existing jewellery and turn them into something new. Almost a month ago, I decided to take out all the old beads that I had and started working with them," said Nidhi, who did a one-year course in fashion designing from National Institute of Fashion Designing (NIFD), Mumbai. She has created close to 80 pieces of junk jewellery.
"Just before I fell sick, I had bought a huge stock of clothes as I was working on bringing out a collection. I have even decided to start working again and will soon launch a summer collection of western wear using the same stock. If my health permits, I wish to open my own store in the city," said Choudhary, who may look frail and take small careful steps, but is standing tall and confident with Siddharth holding her hand.