New Delhi: Ekta was supposed to turn 23 this month. She was confident that she would clear her medical licensing exam, and begin her dream career as a pediatrician. She was the first girl from her village near Alwar to go abroad to study. That career flight was cut short.As rescue workers cleared the debris, Ekta’s father, Ramesh, sat nearby and waited, clinging to hope and the memory of a cheerful afternoon phone by the daughter. Ekta never missed making that call. She would sit in a corner of the mess and call up her family at 7.30 pm every day. On Saturday she did not, which made Ramesh worried.When he started looking for contact numbers to reach his daughter, he came to know about the collapse.It took rescuers about 20 hours to extricate her body, but Ramesh did not move.Having completed her medical degree in Kyrgyzstan, she spent the last year and a half preparing for FMGE, scheduled for June 28.“She never missed making that call at 7.30 pm,” Ramesh told TOI. “I last spoke to her around 4.30 pm on Saturday. She was very happy because she had scored well in a test and was confident she will ace the exam.”“She wanted to become a pediatrician. She loved children and wanted to work with them,” the father said.Ekta would have been 23 on June 25. The family had planned to visit her in Delhi. “She told me, ‘papa, come after my exam and then we will go home together,’” Ramesh said. At 3.55 pm on Sunday, rescuers found her body.Alok Verma, a civil engineer, was killed too in the Saket building collapse. His friends repeatedly tried calling him at night. “His phone kept ringing till about 11pm,” one of his classmates said. “After that, it was dead.”Alok, too, was a student at a coaching institute there, Details about his family were unavailable.
