The best service is sacrifice of self, writes Nagesh Alai
Krishnan and Kannan were handsome twins, indistinguishable like two peas in a pod. God had bestowed them with limpid lotus eyes, arched eyebrows, broad forehead, aquiline nose, full lips, round ears and a sharp jaw making for a well-proportioned face resting on a long neck and a lithe body. They were eye-turners, sending many hearts aflutter. Their intelligence and scholarliness were storied in schools through colleges through hallowed portals of higher education. Their classmates counted themselves lucky to be in their charmed inner circle. After passing out from the same institutes, both set out to establish their own businesses and succeeded over time.
While their externalities were indistinguishable, their behavioural traits were starkly different. If Krishnan was an extrovert full of fizz and froth, Kannan was an introvert full of intensity and introspection. Krishnan had a devil may care attitude while Kannan was extraordinarily cautious and circumspect. Krishnan was impetuous while Kannan was guarded. Krishnan was spontaneous and would talk thirteen to a dozen while Kannan was subdued and would take his time to open up. Krishnan could be reckless while Kannan was measured. In all their similarities and contrasts, they were a bundle of joy for their conservative parents, who lay great emphasis on education, upbringing and bonding. Krishnan and Kannan were very close and would do anything for the other. Identical twins they were, but with each having his own strong identity.
Krishnan was happily married, having wooed and won his vivacious college mate Radha, while Kannan chose to remain single, not having been able to express his love to the classmate that he adored. Much as his parents and Krishan tried to convince him to go in for an arranged marriage, Kannan stayed resolutely single and never explained his reasons. Krishnan and Radha were soon blessed with twin girls, as alike as two peas in a pod. Providence was choosy indeed and scripting their lives. The twin tots grew up in a warm cocoon of not just loving parents but doting grandparents and a loving uncle in Kannan as well, to whom they meant the world.
Their respective lives were otherwise picture perfect and running their course till one day Radha’s health took a bad turn, suffering as she was from atrial septal defect ( ASD ), commonly termed as a hole in the heart. Radha had been treated for it in her childhood and she had been leading a normal life. But, of late, she had started experiencing breathlessness and extreme tiredness for a quite while which eventually lead to a mild heart attack. It was diagnoses as an aggravation due to the recurrence of another tear or hole in the heart leading to complications and growing weakness. Specialists advised that any medication would only be temporary palliatives with no lasting cure and that Radha would at best have another six months to live. The only probable remedy, albeit not guaranteed, that could perhaps extend her life by another 10 odd years could be a heart transplant. Krishnan, his parents and Kannan were distraught hearing this and explored the possibility of a heart transplant, daunting that it was. The donor heart has to be necessarily of a person in terminal coma or who is brain-dead, say due to an accident, where the brain loses all its functions due to the accident trauma, but otherwise the life hangs on a thin balance and the key organs like the heart, kidney, lungs, liver etc remain functional and organ-donation worthy. Given these restrictions, the frantic search and spreading the net through network and contacts, did not yield any results and time was ticking away like a bomb. The entire family, immediate and extended, were coping as well as possible with medical care, support and counselling Radha. She herself chose to stay stoic and cheerful and going about life as best as possible. Kannan too saw it as a personal responsibility and stayed closely involved and supported Krishnan and Radha and their adorable twin daughters.
Krishnan and Kannan were always health conscious and the 6.30 AM morning constitutional was a must-do daily ritual for them; jogging 10 km jog along the highway, close to their home. Careful as they were, thanks to the measured thinking of Kannan, they use to run on the right side of the highway with the traffic headed towards them, so that they can keep a watch on the oncoming vehicles and cautiously stay the course. It was no different that day, both set out for their morning jog together at 6.30 am and along the way started speaking about Radha’s health and the bleak situation. Krishnan and Kannan had always been close to each other. Krishnan, given his nature, poured his heart out and was inconsolable, while continuing to jog at slow speed along with Kannan. Kannan, who was running to left of Krishnan, suddenly went off the track and was hit by a car running at high speed and sent soaring and crashing some fifty feet away. Krishnan was shocked and devasted at the accident. Kannan was still breathing, though badly injured and mauled. Thanks to a Samaritan who stopped his vehicle, Krishnan could take Kannan to a close by hospital and attended to by a trauma specialist. The attending nurse came out of the operating theatre to convey that Kannan is brain-dead, but has been put on life-support and is being attended to by the trauma specialist team. She also handed over to Krishnan, Kannan’s bloodied sportwear. Krishnan was quietly sitting outside the operating theatre, having informed his parents and Radha about the tragic accident. His parents were to soon join him, while Radha had to be home given her condition and to look after her twin tots.
Krishnan, all sombre and pensive, rummaged through the drenched-with-blood clothes of Kannan, and discovered a soggy hand written note, along with his cell and the house keys. Krishnan showed them to his parents, who had by then joined him at the hospital. Curiosity aroused, with trembling hands, Krishnan read the note. Kannan had been written the note that day early morning at 5 am.
The beautifully cursive and meticulously written letter read, “Dear Radha, I have never been good at expansive words nor overt expressions of emotions. I need never say that you and Krishnan are very dear to me and I have always held you in high respect. The reality of the past month of your diagnosis and the imminent inevitability of your end, unless a donor heart was found, was sinking in slowly and surely and it deeply troubled me. Not just about you, but Krishan’s and the twins’ future as well in a potential world of your absence. Suffice it to say, it deeply touched me and traumatized me. We have been class mates since the first year of our college and to confess, I have been smitten by you from the day I saw you. The love for you only deepened as time went by. I never had the courage to speak of my deep feelings for you nor speak about it to Krishnan. Close as he is to me, I was devastated when I learnt of Krishan’s similar feelings for you and much as I did not want to, I stepped back and kept my emotions to myself. I never let my deep feelings for you be known to either Krishnan or my parents, for obvious reasons. My parents had deeply instilled in us that the best service is of sacrifice of self and this beautiful thinking had stayed with me and I have lived my life by that principle. I never felt like marrying anyone else ever. Call it God’s wish, thinking with detachment, my heart would be better placed if it finds a home in your body and lets you live for the sake of Krishnan and the twins and my parents, all of whom are very near and dear to me. I will not be seeing any of you anymore and I carry with me the fond memories of our conversations and bonhomie yesterday at the family dinner table. Please do not carry the burden of any sense of obligation, all that I will be doing is out of a deep sense of love for you. Please take good care of Krishnan and my parents and the kids, as my heart keeps pumping in your being. With much love and respect, Kannan”
Krishnan and his parents could not console themselves at realising the enormity of it all and the ultimate sacrifice of Kannan by throwing away his life so that Radha could continue to live with his heart.
