As a student, Surti was devoted to her studies. Raman called her a person “who lived for learning.”

Rena Fonseca, senior tutor of Mather House and a senior lecturer in Indian studies, remembered Surti as one of the most dedicated students in her seminar on modern Indian history.

“I remember being struck by her serenity, her friendly warmth, and by her obvious delight in all the possibilities of her life at Harvard and at Mather,” said Fonseca in an e-mail message.

As well as being a devoted scholar while at Harvard, she was also active in numerous extracurricular activities. Particularly she was involved in several performing arts groups, including Gunghroo and the Kuumba Singers and service programs organized through the Phillips Brooks House Association. She was also an active member of Harvard’s South Asian Association.

“She’s very very into children,” said Treeny Ahmed ’01, who was a friend of Surti. She noted that Surti volunteered teaching children in Costa Rica during one summer while she was in college and while she studied abroad in Spain for a semester had also found time to teach children.

Friends said that Surti was quite interested in teaching as a career path. She had been planning to spend part of this fall in India working with children and was considering participating in the Teach for America program upon returning to the United States.

All these activities kept Surti quite busy while in college. Raman said that Surti was the type of individual who liked to try her hand a wide range of activities.