NEW DELHI: Ten days ago, Tanya Soni had joyously celebrated her 21st birthday with loved ones.
On Saturday, she drowned as rainwater flooded the basement of Rau’s IAS Study Circle in Old Rajender Nagar. The basement of the coaching centre was a library where she had been studying.
On Saturday evening, Tanya’s friends got a distress call from her mother, who was in Nagpur: “Please check on Tanya; she hasn’t answered her phone in hours,” her mother told them.
Moments later, the friends learned that the library where Tanya used to study was inundated. They panicked and rushed to the spot.
The grim possibility that Tanya may have died had become the reality by then.
No coaching centre staff was present to identify the victims. Tanya’s friends then did the unbearable task. They identified their friend’s lifeless body. “As soon as we heard that rescue operations were under way, we rushed to the scene. We had to identify our best friend’s lifeless body amid the chaos,” one of them said.
Tanya’s parents were in Nagpur for her younger sister’s admission when they got the news of their elder child’s death from her friends. No one from the coaching centre called to inform them.
Her father, Vijay, told TOI: “They knew how severe the waterlogging was, yet they didn’t halt classes. Even with the entire area flooded, they allowed students to remain in the basement. How could they, in good conscience, let anyone continue studying under such dangerous conditions?”
Rishi, her 20-year-old classmate, said: “She had such grand ambitions. Just in June, she had received her final semester marks and was excited to start a new phase of her life. We spent hours talking about her plans, not knowing that our last conversation would be our final goodbye.”
Divyam Mahajan, another close friend, told TOI: “Tanya loved writing poetry and regularly published her own work. Despite her rigorous UPSC preparations, she always found time for her passion. Her dedication was inspiring.”
Tanya, originally from Bihar, had moved to Telangana with her family and then to Delhi for higher education.
She had just graduated from Maharaja Agrasen College under Delhi University, where she had studied BA in political science and English. She had ambitious dreams of becoming a civil servant and was eagerly awaiting the next chapter of her life.
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