Baluheda – Eye Donation Special

As usual it was 10 am, and like everyday I got free from the clinic and was about to take my lunch, when my mobile – especially for eye donation – started ringing. At that very moment I understood that there must be some noble person who must have donated his/her eyes after death, and my thought was very correct as it was the call from Dr Girish Sharma ji who himself is a doctor and I had recently met him at a meeting meant for Eye Donation. I noted the address and called our technician Mahendra ji and asked him to meet him at aerodrome. At that moment Dr Sangeeta my wife asked me to have my lunch before I leave for the place. But it was impossible for me to wait as the incident took place in Baluheda village situated 40 kms from Kota, where 3 children aged 10 – 12 died after getting drowned in nearby pond. Even the autopsy was done one hour before and that forced me to immediately rush to the spot.
Our Jyoti-Mitra (friend) Dr Girish Sharma ji is the block CMHO of that tehsil, where he and his team met the family members of the deceased and motivated them to donate the eyes of the deceased. They got readily accepted the proposal and accepted to donate the eyes. But they don’t want to bring this in notice of the women of the house and other illiterate people of village and that’s why the eye donation had to be done at the earliest.
Here, time was less and that it was still more time for Mahendra to reach that’s why I started querying on my level for hiring any ambulance, jeep or car so that he could reach there at the earliest but my attempts failed and the final option left was to go on bike and when it comes to bike we believe on Mr Utpal Rajoriya, Deputy President of Shine India Foundation, who had earlier took Mahendraji on his pulsar bike to Bhavanimandi village 130 kms in 2 hours for eye donation.
As soon as we reached aerodrome and called Utpal ji he was there within 5 minutes as he did always. We three started off in bike, and after one hour when we asked the address to Baluheda from some car people. As usual Utpal ji was driving his own bike, I was behind him and Mahendra was in last. After the one hour journey, we asked the address of Baluheda from the cars passing through, they replied and asked to drive fast, still the one hour travel is left.
Continuously Dr Girish Sharma ji, SDM Sangond and police inspector were calling us and which was fair also. Because the villagers were confused that when all the formalities has been done then why parents of deceased are not receiving the body, who later came to know that some team from Kota is arriving for the eye donation and they straight away refused for that. They also managed to explain socialistic cause to other family that why they are disturbing the next birth of the child.
On the other hand, here as we came to know about another hour of journey Utpal ji raced his bike to more speed and all of a sudden while crossing a speed breaker Mahendraji lost his balance and fell from the bike. It was not that there were no breakers earlier, but this one was more high and atypical.
Added to that the last information which the passerby had given to us was also wrong as the place where Mahendraji fell down, the Baluheda hospital was situated at a distance of 500 meters, where we were actually going. Dr Girish, seeing us getting late was sighted coming on his car to take us. He stopped near Mahendraji who had fallen on road and got injuries on his hands and back and clothes all torn up.
The only thing we possessed was the willpower of our team. We were brought in the car to the hospital where Mahendra was brought in front of the cooler to get some cold air. The way he had fallen from the bike was very dangerous and was hard to be safe enough. After sitting for a while Mahendra was treated with spirit and he after washing his hands with spirit wore the gloves, even in that bad pain, and took the eye donation of the two children.
By that time myself and my friend Utpal Rajoriya reached between the villagers and explained them the entire process of eye donation.