This write-up is by sister Sudeshna Sen Chakraborti

In the early hours of June 17, 1963 my sister Madhumati, aged 21  left us after suffering for years from bronchial asthma, which dilated her heart beyond repair. She was in her first year of PG in Eng from Patna University.  She breathed her last after a long bout of fighting this complication. She managed to live to the full the 21 years that Life had allotted her. She was not just beautiful to look at, as a person too she was very special. She loved to paint, embroider and sing. She was gentle by nature with a core of steel underlying her gentleness. I was more in awe of her than I was of my Didi, Maitreyi. If she looked at me sternly, I knew I have had it. She supervised my home -work and was very upset when I never sat down to study before exams. She taught me how to be neat in my written work.

I knew what I was missing when Rangadi left home after her graduation, for her Master’s from Patna University. My life was never the same because when she came home in summer she would often tell Ma that whenever she had her attacks she felt very exhausted. She would tire easily and finally when on June 16^th she had her final attack no doctors were available in our town to take care of her. We had no emergency facility there and my sister literally breathed her last a few hours later without any medical help. After her death doctors told my parents of her dilated heart. Today fifty years to date, when I look back I realize the many people I have known and loved have died because of medical negligence. We are in the 21^st century, which my sister never saw but somehow little has changed for small people in smaller towns in India. This is the irony, which loved ones ponder on every day of their lives especially when they read of ‘India Shining’. 

Madhumati Sen was born  Feb-18-1942, and is survived by her younger siblings.