Express News Service KOCHI: When the young Venu Rajamony, former ambassador of India to the Netherlands, joined Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi as a student of international relations in the early 1980s, Saroj Thapa was already an active member on the political scene. Propelled by a motivated group of students who called themselves the ‘Free Thinkers’, Venu, fresh out of his stint as the chairman of the student’s union at Maharaja’s College, Kochi, decided to contest as the vice-president for the student body elections at the premier institute. It was at one of the meetings of ‘Free Thinkers’ that the two met. Saroj was a year senior, from Darjeeling, and was pursuing Master’s in history. Despite their different fields of study, it didn’t take long for the two to discover their shared interests, nor did they need a reason to meet.