Connections of the heart.

I touched the warm parapet that looked sapped out of the continuous radiation for the day from the scorching Sun. In the western horizon, a large whitish cloud was shielding the Sun despite the heavy metallic rays beaming out from all the angles from the surface of the cloud. The birds of summer fly past the cloud as though they were going to report the happenings in their part of the globe with haste. The routine breeze was absent and missing. There was no movement in the trees and all the branches were as though they were waiting for some mysterious event to happen in the Nature. The buzzing sounds of the vehicles and the people in the not-so-distant road was echoing in my ears like the sound of trumpet echoing in the middle of a deep valley in the coarse hills. The roaring sound of the starting of the unknown train was clearly audible. Two squirrels in the corner of the floor were fighting with their pranks. The squirrels climbed upon a tree with one of them menacingly looking at the other down from the zenith of the tree. The lower one was shouting at the higher one with some sudden movements in its head. The higher one responded with the similar movements in its head turning wide angles in the opposite directions. Suddenly, the lower one took a leap into the top branch and both were still for a moment!

That was a day with a set of mixed feelings on life's different perspectives. Earlier in the day, I had met my doctor with a scan report and she suggested me continuing the chemotherapy for nine more weeks. Though the line of treatment was simple to execute and follow, the enablers of the treatment such as money,family support and my willpower, decide the success of it partly.

As some advertising tag proudly says,'There are a few things beyond money; but they all cost money'. Though money cannot buy everything in this world and beyond, it's role is definitely important when it really matters most. My train of thoughts on that evening meandered through the financial position I was in to take on the challenges of the treatment and my fight against the disease. I was not completely prepared to make it with the expected expenses touching more than Rs.10 lakhs for nine more weeks of treatment! I was thinking of the various options to raise money since for all of us who are single-income sourced humans, working with the cash flows running into lakhs of rupees over just a few weeks is a daring thought!

Sreenivasulu Yaparla aka Seenu called me up incidentally on that night inquiring about my health and general condition of my life. Seenu has been a friend ever since I had come to Bangalore. After a couple of failed attempts at entrepreneurship, he made it into IT and now is into active IT consulting based in Hyderabad. I was swallowing my words when he questioned on my financial preparedness in dealing with the disease and after recognizing my feelings, he offered me having some money to start with the treatment. Had he not offered the money in that moment, the history would have taken a different course. The defining moments in one's life would come totally unexpected, and once they happen, they define the moments!

A few days later, my childhood friend, Raja Reddy, who is now in US called me up with a proposal to help me in my financial needs. His idea was to raise the charity funds in the form of donations for me so I could keep on continuing the treatment. Though I was skeptical about the idea (because I was not sure who the target group was and whether they would really be interested in donating!), I kept on discussing the idea with him for over a couple of days. Meanwhile, I had applied for a personal loan from a bank to supplement my financial needs.

Raja should be thanked a lot on giving me another decisive moment in my life! He worked with one of my engineering classmates, Suri, who had been another active resource and inspiration in making the idea of donations a huge success! They both took the task to their shoulders with a real zeal and fervor that is truly unprecedented! Later, a few of my MBA friends shared my agony and came forward to help me in fight against one of the deadly diseases in this world! I should thank all of them who had given me continuous moral, emotional and financial support!

Every mortal in this world understands the significance of the money in its capacity to satisfy their various needs and provide a cloud of security for their future. Parting the things which you would need for yourself in your life entails big heart and a strong feeling of empathy. That feeling wins which would think of the real feelings of the person receiving the money as a receptor. The heart must beat for the person's situation which coerced him to act as a receptor. The mind should be ready to take a decision and act!

And the donors, both in US and in India, responded; they just did not react! With all the donations trickling in as diverse amounts as $50 to $3000, I felt as though the hearts in this world still do not wither in the tough situations as these. The connections of the heart have been so strong as to overcome all other biases and feelings. All donors who were part of my life now did not just donate money; they shared a part of life with me. They donated minutes of thoughts and feelings to me! They shared some of the finest moments with me, thus helping me in getting tremendous courage and conviction to fight against my disease. More than any thing else, I feel now my heart is connected with all of their hearts! I am beholden to all of you, Donors! Merci, donateurs!

(Despite donations, I am deeply touched by a few heart-warming asides that took place in the process of donation over a period of time. Though they might just sound as events, they definitely would have defined the scope of feelings of the respective donors in their decisions. I give below a few touching and interesting asides in the process of donation:

• Sumana, daughter of Raja Reddy, had decided not to have her regular birthday gift from her dad. Instead, she preferred to donate the money to my cause!
• Ramesh Nagarajan, who had only spent one year with me in my Engineering (he changed his college later), was kind enough to help me through his donation. Given that it has been around sixteen years since I completed my engineering and given that I and Ramesh had not been in contact for all this long, his donation really makes a feeling of a real connection of the hearts!
• Some of the donors do not know me personally or directly. Nevertheless, their donation for my cause shows the greatness of their eloquent kindness and my tributes to it, however high it might be, do not match with the greatness of their hearts!)
  

Given that most of the donors were out of my contact network for more than at least ten years, it has been a great feeling when some of them visited me personally at my home and shared their support for me.

All these events and incidents aroused a new hope in me. A hope, though fragile and frail, that would make me strong enough in my fight against the odds and emerge stronger and smarter with unwavering confidence in myself and in my abilities to take forward all the connections of my heart to new levels.