Chennai Corner

My Heart Beats For You
A teenager's death in a road accident two weeks ago has woken the collective conscience of Tamil Nadu's citizens. In an extraordinary gesture, the doctor-parents ofthe teenager Hithendran put their grief aside and decided to donate all his organs: heart, kidneys, liver and eyes to different hospitals in the city. Even his bone marrow was banked for the treatment of cancer patients. "We had hoped that he would bring us laurels through his academic excellence. We are happy now that he lives through others," said S Asokan and Pushpanaji, the parents. "It's something that has to be praised with intense feeling," said CM M Karunanidhi, who dispatched his son, Stalin (also the minister for local administration) to visit the parents. A nine-year-old child in Frontier Lifeline Hospital run by cardiologist Dr Cherian already has Hithendran's heart beating inside him. Inspired by this, the family of 50-year-old Murali, who was kept alive by a ventilator after an undetected aneurysm in his brain burst, decided to let him go and see him live through others. Murali's heart gave a new lease of life to a 48-year-old at Frontier lifeline, while his liver and kidneys were harvested at Apollo and his eyes, like those of Hithendran, were donated to Sankara Nethralaya. Murali's older brother, Dr Ram Kumar admitted "Initially, Murali's 15-year-old son was appalled at the thought of his father being cut up, but realized that this process will aid his father living on in others."

Altruism Has No Boundaries
It's not just in Chennai that organ donation is something grieving families are open to. Or for that matter, that only doctors can appreciate how important organ donation is. Last week when two engineering students, Manikandan (22) and Praveen Kumar (19) of nearby Karaikal in Puducherry, were killed after being hit by a van while riding a bike, their families were devastated. But Chandrasekharan, father of Manikandan, asked doctors at the Karaikal general hospital to harvest his organs. The doctors removed his eyes and sent them to the Puducherry eye bank. Perhaps, this in the difference between a district hospital and a city which is perceived by some as the medical capital of India. While in Chennai, all organs could be harvested in a short time frame – it took only 11 minutes, with some help from the traffic police, to get Hithendran's heart from Apollo to Lifeline – in Karaikal, all doctors could preserve for posterity were the eyes.Good deeds definitely inspire others. MOHAN (Multi-organ Harvesting Aid Network) which works to create awareness about organ donation has been receiving many calls following Hithendran's parents' altruistic gesture."A prospective donor should keep talking to his family about it, so when the time comes, they would be prepared," says Latha Kumarasami of the TANKER Foundation, a kidney foundation that creates awareness about cadaveric kidney transplants.

A Botched Photo-Op
Speaking of hospitals, DMDK chief Vijaykanth, who has been giving sleepless nights to both the DMK and AIADMK, got into a skirmish at a hospital recently. The actor-turned-politician had gone to call on CPM leader N Varadarajan but was stopped at the gate by security guards who told him he could not take his party leaders (Panrutti Ramachandran, Parthasarathy andKrishnamurthy) and a photographer inside. There are two issues here: one that Vijayakanth was making a point of his new-found love for the comrades ever since they came out of the ruling coalition after CM Karunanidhi sided with the UPA at the centre on the nuclear issue. The second point was that he wanted to convert his visitinto a photo-op. His argument with the guards belaboured this point: If CM Karunanidhi, who visited Varadarajan, got his pictures in the papers, why could he not take a photographer too? Because Karunanidhi is the CM, duh. An incensed Vijayakanth did not visit the comrade and later put out a press release condemning the hospital. Incidentally, Varadarajan's stay in a corporate hospital was frowned upon by some of his comrades. But one CPM leader justified it saying that Varadarajan's sugar levels dropped drastically making his condition quite serious and since the corporate hospital was nearby, he was rushed there.A few days later, Varadarajan was fighting for the poor: he headed a party delegation to the CM demanding that the state government issue pattas for those living on the banks of water bodies and also to those who have been living on temple lands.

Ego Drives
Clearly, ego drives politicians and actors. AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha reportedly stayed away from the fast organized by the left on the Sri Lankan issue on October 2 although she promised in writing that she would send a representative. Her problem was that the comrades also invited Vijayakanth, who projects himself as the "Karupu MGR" (Black MGR) and is trying to chisel away at Amma's votebank. Over a period of time he and Jayalalitha have had colourful exchanges. She called him a drunk some months ago and more recently – forgetting that she herself was a tinsel town product – made the disparaging comment, when asked about Telugu star Chiranjeevi joining politics, that "TN's disease seems to have infected AndhraPradesh". Vijayakanth turned around and called her a "peruvyadi which has gripped TN." MIDS professor Venkatachalapathy, also a Tamil writer, points out that peruvyati translates to leprosy. Vijayakanth also constantly tangles with the CM. Recently he accused Karunanidhi of "instigating" comedian Vadivelu to make the charge that his cadres had attacked Vadivelu's house. While the script usually has a hero and comedian getting together to bash up the baddies, in this case Vijayakanth and Vadivelu have bad blood which was caused by an earlier attack on the comedian's office allegedly orchestrated by the DMDK chief. Now Vadivelu has got completely carried away and is messing with a man whose party's debut in the 2006 assembly election brought the DMDK an impressive 8.33 per cent of the votes polled. Ego driven by his popularity in films, Vadivelu has dared "Captain" Vijayakanth – "I will contest against him and I will win because I have more popular support than he does." He claims he will quit movies if he loses. Now, if I had a penny for every time a politician has uttered those words….

Humility Thy Name Is APJ
But ego does not drive one man. And that is APJ Abdul Kalam, who has Z-plus security. When he arrived here from Madurai over the week-end, the state protocol officer did not provide a bullet-proof car to receive him at the tarmac. Kalam, after waiting for a while, got into an airport vehicle and reached the lounge where he waited for his Delhi flight.He is truly the People's President – he even signed autographs while he waited at the airport lounge –and unlike politicians, he made no fuss about the security breach. The AIADMK chief, it may be recalled, went to the high court against the DMK government for notproviding her enough security. The government also tried to embarrass her saying they did not know where to send a top cop to discuss security issues with her, making a snide reference to her four-month-long stay at her Kodanadu estate in Ooty from April.