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Raksha Bandhan: Sister’s life-saving ‘gift’ last year makes festival special for duo
Last year, a senior professor at KGMU had tied a rakhi to her income tax officer brother in a hospital, where she donated her kidney to save his life. This year, the siblings will renew that bond and vow to be by each other’s side, through thick and thin.
The dietary restrictions remain, but for Sandeep Kumar, the Lucknow-based principal income tax commissioner, life is back to normal now.
After his second kidney transplant last year, the officer, who is back to work now, is looking forward to Raksha Bandhan, which, he admits is an emotional reminder of the selfless love of his sibling.
On August 14 last year, professor Sujata Deo, a senior professor at the King George’s Medical University (KGMU), had donated her kidney to save his life, and days later, had tied the thread of love on her brother’s wrist at Ahmedabad’s Institute of Kidney Disease and Research Centre (IKDRC).
Back then, both siblings were admitted to the same hospital – professor Deo being the donor and Kumar, the recipient of her sister’s life-saving act. “As doctors, we learn to hold our emotions but this surely is going to be an emotional Raksha Bandhan,” said professor Deo.
“I have four kidneys now while my sister has just one. I feel her love all the time. And, look at the timing. Her gesture came so close to Raksha Bandhan, so close that after the transplant, she tied a rakhi to me on my hospital bed,” said Kumar.
“Two transplants means I have four kidneys, as the two damaged and shrunk ones weren’t removed on medical advice,” Kumar added.
“Raksha Bandhan is an unsaid promise of a brother to ensure the wellbeing of his sister. My sister reversed this saying by gifting me life itself. So, this Raksha Bandhan will be an occasion to renew the pledge of being together for each other at all times,” he said.
Professor Deo smiled, when asked about the time when she had to make the decision.
“Me and my husband, and now, my daughter too, all are doctors. When we doctors take the Hippocrates Oath, we commit to help all who we can. In this case, there was this irresistible emotional and familial pull too and thus it all became very easy. I was aware that one can survive well with a single kidney but for my brother, time was running out,” professor Deo, a senior gynaecologist at KGMU’s Queen Mary hospital, said.
Kumar felt his sister’s gesture was meaningful as making such choices isn’t easy.
“When we grow up, have our own families, a decision like this becomes a collective, family decision. So, evolving a consensus and then, despite the knowledge that one can lead a perfectly healthy life with a single kidney, taking the call to donate a vital body part, isn’t easy. All of this made it a great gesture,” he says.
This was Kumar’s second transplant, the first being in 2013 and the second transplant was all the more important as between 2013 to 2021, (the year of the two transplants), the much-in-demand kidney hospital’s transplant norms had been revised, further highlighting the importance of an immediate relative volunteering for a kidney donation.
The provision of non-relatives volunteering for donation too exists, but it is a “long drawn, taxing affair” and that is one fact that the siblings were aware of.
Now, all that is past. It’s time to enjoy the present. Professor Sujata Deo is fond of cooking. “I love to try new recipes,” she says without disclosing the menu for this Raksha Bandhan!
