UNBREAKABLES

Someone called it The Emperor of all Maladies. Many a life changed forever and no one as yet can claim to have won the war against the disease yet there are a few who not only have fought the Emperor but have survived. These are some true life stories of the Unbreakables.

She was thirty two, he was a couple of years older and they had a lovely daughter who was six when we met them at Mumbai in 2002. Let me address her as K. It wasn’t the best of circumstances as K was then at Tata Memorial Hospital at Parel. She was battling the Emperor and had come down from Kolkata for the treatment for they said this was the best place with the best doctors and facilities. She was an office colleague and had been a charming girl full of life when she had joined the company around a decade ago. She always wore long kurtas and with her curly hair and big glasses you could never miss her but the best thing about her was her happy nature and for that she was loved by all. The day we saw her, she was lying on the hospital bed with a friend or two in attendance and her biggest pillar of strength, her husband, who looked completely exhausted having lived through the nightmare for the last two years. The doctors had just told the husband that they had tried their best and his wife’s case looked incurable. There was little they could do so it was best to take her home where she could live the remaining days of her short life with her family.

The couple went back home to Kolkata. The woman wanted to live and was not willing to accept a NO for an answer. Both husband and wife searched for literature on the disease and places which offered hope. Their search zoomed on Christian Medical College, Vellore where they read that some people with the same symptoms and ailment had seen miraculous results. The couple left their child with her grandparents and went to Vellore and stay put there for months where she underwent treatment which many a mortal would have said no to but she wanted to live. When things had gone beyond repair, the doctors had even suggested if her brother staying abroad would be willing to give her bone marrow which was seen as her only hope, but the brother had shied away. Her lust for life was so desperate that the treatment at Vellore started having positive impact and slowly she started showing signs of improving. She kept going at short intervals to Vellore and in a year or two returned to near normal life.

We met her once again when she got a transfer to Mumbai. When many a meek person would have opted for an easy posting doing paperwork, she took charge as the Divisional Manager of an insurance branch which had a history of corruption and political interference. She not only took to the role seriously, she turned the office around to making it one of the best offices. She would travel by the Mumbai locals always carrying back with her the laptop for she would work late into the night. While she still had to go to Vellore repeatedly, she never gave up on life. Today, her daughter is in the US studying, the husband is doing well in a multi-national company while the Brave Heart goes on with her work as usual. Never does she ever complain about her health or curse the Lord for her fate. We do get some messages from her at times saying she has had to rush to Vellore and on other occasions recommends other patients to her doctor, her savior. A true fighter to whom the Emperor bows and salutes.

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Meet Syeda Noor-e-Jannat which literally meant Syeda, the Light of the World. She was the only daughter of her parents and she had everything going right for her- love of her parents, great friends to play with, huge pile of toys and clothes, in short a happy life when tragedy struck. She was seven years old when she was detected with Burkitt’s Lymphoma and her life changed forever. It appeared that for her father at Dhaka, the Light of the World had been lost for the happy kid. They tried local hospitals and after some time when Syeda’s health started deteriorating, the family came down to Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata where the long and painful treatment started for the little one. The girl retreated into her shell and would hardly interact with anyone except her mother who would constantly read her stories. It took the doctors three years of experiments, three years of fighting to save the kid, three years of care and love. Today Syeda is back in school playing, dancing, singing and taking to her studies as others in her class. The Light now shines once again for her parents. The Emperor is struck by the valour and grit of the little girl and once again dismounts from his white stead to kneel before Syeda.

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My third victor was a fifteen year old son of a farmer who earned no more than Rs 2000 a month.  Rajesh was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. He was brought to Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata where he was put on a Chemotherapy protocol. Despite the painful and prolonged treatment, Rajesh was always in high spirits. He never let the ailment get the better of him. Even with the treatment going on, Rajesh prepared for this Board examinations. Rajesh also had interest in photography. He joined a workshop where he learnt more about the art of photography. Soon the talented young man kept improving his skills and more recently some of his photographs were put on display at London.

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Stories of K, Syeda and Rajesh may be rarity but still they are there. They are the few whose zest for life has sent back Yama to come another day. The lives of the Unbreakables shows that it is not all lost as long as you are ready to stand up and fight. And in this fight there are the good doctors and hospitals like Tata Medical Centre, Kolkata where such miracles happen. I am fortunate to be associated with TMC as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility. Equipped with the most modern facilities and some of the best doctors, TMC was established in 2011. Built at a cost of Rs 350 crores completely paid for by Tata Trusts, this hospital currently has 167 beds and caters to the eastern part of the country which has an extremely high incidence of cancer. The hospital also has a place to put up the family of patients within the campus. Today the hospital is wanting to expand more by adding nearly 200 new beds. Take a look at the hospital. The story goes that when the building was ready for inauguration, the locals of the area protested that they had given the land for building a hospital and not a hotel. In order to calm their nerves, the gates were opened and they were shown around the complex and they were all in awe and praise of the place.

Tata Medical Centre has a face for their fund raising and that belongs to another Unbreakable, Koel and I would request my readers to see the beautiful and touching film on Journey of Hope by logging on to on youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGrD9AtEdFQ (select the link, right click and scroll to the site which reads Go to www. and enter to view).

The smile on the little girl’s face says it all. Hope we beat the Emperor once and for all.

SS