BANGALORE: Bunking was a norm, college life, a lot of fun and the main takeaway was leadership attributes that made him a Minister. This is how Karnataka’s Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Rudrappa Patil, a qualified dermatologist, summarises his college life. Dr Patil studied MBBS from the MR Medical College in Gulbarga and graduated in 1991. He went on to study Postgraduation in Dermatology in the same college in 1995.
Recollecting that period, he said that while academics was of great importance to him, bunking was an indispensable part of his student life. “I had a gang of friends and we loved watching movies. We knew that it would not go down well with the professors. But we simply had to do it,” he says.
There were several occasions when he was caught red-handed! “I would always get on to the wrong side with my Principal who would question a lot of things that I did, especially missing classes to watch movies. I didn’t bunk a lot in MBBS, but the most embarrassing moment was when I was caught bunking by my teachers during pre-university days at Sharanabasaveshwar PU College,” Dr Patil reminisces with a laugh.
The 46-year old is one of the few younger faces in the Karnataka government. He was elected to the Karnataka Assembly from the Sedam constituency in Gulbarga district. A little over a month into heading a Department whose budgetary allocation runs over a thousand crore rupees, Dr Patil took on a powerful medical education lobby, by initiating action against eight linguistic minority institutions for allegedly flouting norms while admitting students. A few months later, Dr Patil mandated government medical college hospitals and super-specialty hospitals to make public details of patients schedule, timing of out-patient departments, inventory, attendance and so on.
Besides having his share of fun, Dr Patil considers college as the place that gave him a strong foundation in cultivating leadership skills. “I went to medical college and then became a politician. All these professions require leadership qualities. And college was the place where I developed this quality,” he says. “This means a lot to me. I still remember how proud I felt the day I completed my MBBS. It was the best moment from the whole of my college life.” His leadership skills came to the fore when he took a lead to ensure effective implementation of the Karnataka Professional Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Determination of Fee) Act, 2006, which will be enforced in 2015.
He doesn’t forgot to mention his best friend during the college life — Shivanand. Dr Patil also got nostalgic talking about his favourite food joint. “The Centre Kamath Hotel was located very close to my college and we would always hang out there to chit chat,” he says. Along with academics, Dr Patil was also a talented player of table tennis and carrom. “But I didn’t win any awards. I simply enjoyed playing these games.”
Although he had a lot of friends, he was still not that popular during college days, he says. With a mild laugh he also reveals a secret: that he was not high in scoring points against the opposite gender. “I would rate myself as being an average guy when it comes to bowling over the maidens. Obviously, I wasn’t so popular then as I am now.”
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