Sushant was an 'all-rounder': Late actor's school friend recalls

Late versatile actor Sushant Singh Rajput was the "complete package" in real life, recalls his close friend from school days, Arti Batra Dua. She adds that he "was very deeply attached to the people he considered his close ones".

Sushant, who did his initial schooling at St. Karen's High School in Patna, came to Delhi in 2001 for higher studies. He attended Kulachi Hansraj Model School before pursuing mechanical engineering from Delhi College of Engineering (DCE). It was at the Delhi school where Sushant and Arti became close friends.

"I met Sushant for the first time in standard XI. He came as a new student. It was totally different with him. We went on to become good friends. He was a fun person. I was very serious in studies and he used to take things lightly. Not that he ignored studies, but he never took stress to his head," she recalls.

"Sushant was a complete package. He was good at studies, he used to do mischievous things at school. The teachers were really fond of him. He was an all-rounder," Arti told IANS.

She remembers how Sushant gave her his autograph on the last day at school and jokingly said: "Rakh le, baad mein line mein khade hone ke baad bhi kya pata na mile (keep it, later you may not get it even if you stand in a queue)."

"It was our farewell day and I was feeling a bit low. I remember there were engineering coaching centre people who had come to our school and given us sample papers in brown envelopes. Sushant sat next to me. He looked at me and took my envelope and wrote, ‘Lots of love, Sushant' on it."

"I was annoyed because he had ruined my envelope by writing his name on it, and asked him to give me his envelope and take mine. That was when he gave the funny response, ‘rakh le, baad mein line mein khade hone ke baad bhi kya pata na mile'. And he actually proved it. He did everything to fulfil his dreams. I am super proud of him. I still have that brown envelope. It's my precious memory of Sushant," Arti shared.

Sushant dropped a year post standard XII to get admission into DCE.

"After standard XII, he dropped a year to prepare for the entrance exams for DCE. When he tried for the first time, he was not able to crack it. His mother passed away the same year and he was very much attached to his mom. He then studied a lot and the next year he cracked the entrance exam and got an admission into DCE. He had a ‘never give up' attitude. His dedication inspired me a lot," she added.

Arti also recalled how Sushant went all the way to Ujjain from Delhi to meet another school friend, Navya Jindal, just to inform of his plan of "quitting engineering and joining the entertainment field".

"Sushant believed in quality over quantity. He did not have many friends but was very deeply attached to the people he treated as his close ones. I guess only Navya and I were in touch with him post school," she said.