Manish Bhatnagar (BT/CE/1987) left us on April 18th, 2021. They say that God takes away first whom he loves the most. This is certainly true of Manish, described by all who knew him, whether from school or college or otherwise, as a person who will smile and care for his friends, no matter what his own situation be.

Manish is remembered as full of life, caring and generous by his batchmates. To be with Manish was a guarantee for cheerfulness, such was the nature of his infectious enthusiasm and laughter. Known to all and loved by all would aptly describe Manish. From the experience of 1987 batch at IITK, Manish was not only friends with his wing mates, but the whole batch and other batches as well – a feat accomplished solely due to his sunny and generous disposition. We also remember Manish going out of his way to help people, in the process, earning lasting friends who all miss him now.

Manish was also the Cultural Secretary and in the true spirit of IITK culture was heavily involved in bulla sessions undeterred by any upcoming distractions quizzes or assignments! Many in the batch of 1987 of IITK thank their luck that they could meet Manish in 2015, at the 25th reunion.

Post IITK, Manish pursued a journey full of experiments and discovery. He joined a Civil Engineering job after graduating but left it in a year as his passion for teaching brought him to Allahabad and then to Kota, Rajasthan. His love and commitment for his parents, however, did not permit him to remain away from home for long. He started teaching again in Allahabad and in 2016 diversified by investing in a manufacturing facility and started making high compressive strength anti-skid tiles for special use.

In life’s ups and downs, Manish possibly had a few difficult years as COVID pandemic affected both his teaching and tiles business equally. He is survived by his wife and son aged 11 years only and we collectively believe that none of our friend’s families should have to suffer on account of the vagary of a life cut short. We are setting up a fund for Manish to help his family through these times and are determined to see that Manish’s son achieves the dreams of his father for him.

As an aside, Manish’s wife, Sadhna, now hopes to work for ensuring that their son, an only child gets a good life and proper education. We hope to help the family by setting up the monetary help here.

Purpose of Fund

The IITK 91 batch of students, as well as other individuals who knew Manish across other batches, and friends from his school (St. Joseph's College, Allahabad) seek to help Manish’s son and wife by donating generously to this corpus fund. We seek to provide monetary help to his family directly from this fund. We will decide down the road how to set the distribution of this corpus through the years depending on the needs and the amount we are able to collect. We thank everyone who donates for this cause in advance.