Helpless

After completing my mid-night (2am IST) fiesta at Arcus, I return to my room to complete my dissertation report. Since this has to be my last trip in the campus today, I put on my night clothes so that only two activities remain on board. Complete the report and sleep. However, as always, I tend to check my mails and updates on social networking sites (gmail, yahoo, orkut, facebook and mandevian) to make sure I don't miss something important. But today, before that I checked the yahoo messenger where I left Pranay on hold to go to Arcus. But he left with Sanjay and Adarsh to go to see the Empire State Building in NYC (something which they were planning since ages).

No updates on gmail or yahoo. Nothing new on orkut or facebook. So I reach for mandevian ID which includes all redirected mails from my MDI mail ID as well. Today there was one really important mail. More important then perhaps any Placecom mail as well. A girl called Aparna from PG08 batch called up for help from the MDI community. A 22 year old friend of hers is suffering from a lung cancer and has to undergo a surgery (BMT – Bone Marrow Transplant) in the Apollo Specialty Hospital in Chennai. Coming from a middle class family, the poor parents cannot afford this 12-15 lakhs surgery after already spending about 7-8 lakhs on the chemotherapy treatment over the past one year or so. So now the family has decided to go to public for help in terms of donations. 

Sometimes I wonder how cruel the life can be to someone. Truly spoken, if you want to know how fortunate you are, listen to someone else’s misfortune. Chemotherapy is one of the most painful treatments of cancer. Besides that BMT is one of the most complex surgeries in the medical domain from the knowledge so far I have known. That 22 year girl would probably not have done anything bad to anybody in her life but still she has encountered such ill fate. More frustrating is the inability to help her in financial terms. By no means can I fathom the agony of her family. Sympathy won’t treat her. This is another occasion where in I feel so helpless not been able to help someone to come out of his/her miseries. All this MBA+Engineering renders meaningless.

When I used to donate blood two years back, I used to get some sense of satisfaction of having done something good for the society. But in the past two years, I don't remember a single incident when I have done something for my society, for my nation or least for my family. I wish to get back my pre-2007 life but the whirlpool created by this job scenario doesn’t allow me to do so. The more I want to come out of this vicious circle, the deeper I penetrate into it. But I try… and try until I succeed.