The cancer thankfully was in remission. It was almost 5 years and all his scans and reports showed no signs of cancer in the body. Shankar Dayal was hugely relieved. He had feared its return, even after successful surgical removal of his infected prostrate. If the cancer had returned it would have been a huge set back for him and his family, who had just started to find their feet.
Born in lower middle class, all his life he had struggled to make the ends meet. Even with his clerk’s job at a local shoe store, he earned just enough to put food on the table but never enough, to put anything else. The bylanes of Shadhara that he traversed daily to get to office, had gradually got imprinted on his body as wrinkles. At 57 now, having lost his wife to pneumonia six years back, he was singlehandedly taking care of his family of 2 sons and a daughter when the cancer had struck him for the first time.
In fact his ailment had proved to be lucky for Shankar Dayal. In a strange irony it had turned his prospects around. When struggling to find means to fund his tests and diagnostics before his surgery, he was lucky to get introduced to his benefactor Raj Charan Gupta. Raj ji was a philanthropist who lived in a big bungalow in Green Park however stories were told; how his heart was even bigger than his abode. Hearing of his lack of means to fund his treatment, Raj ji had come to his aid. Not only had he borne the entire expense of 3.5lacs for his treatment but in due course he had also helped in other ways.
Shankar’s eldest son was a drifter who had no direction to his life and no settled job. In fact he could not stay in any job for more than 3 months before he got back with his other drifter friends. Raj ji being politically connected had helped and got him a state govt job. The job was well paying on both sides of the table. In fact getting into the job was a narrow escape as otherwise he might also have found himself in jail with those friends, as they were arrested for assaulting and looting an elderly couple. Each of his 3 friends though kept professing their innocence, had got convicted for six months.
His daughter, who Shaker Dayal loved dearly was trapped in a bad marriage. She was married in a joint family of two brothers and their parents, all of who lived in a dingy 2 bedroom apartment. The mother in law and the daughters in laws were always mired in turf wars of who will do what chores. The minutest of infraction was enough to trigger a full scale verbal offensive from any one of the warring women.
This non stop battleground had not turned bloody till her husband one day, in a fit of rage had not thrown a scalding hot cup of tea at her. Though she sustained only minor burns but it had scarred their relationship. She stayed back in her fathers house fearing for her life till Rajji had stepped in. He had called her entire in laws family to his house and counseled them. The result of his advice was that her husband had come to fetch her and from then on the battles in her house largely subsided.
However the biggest stroke of luck that happened in Shankar dayal’s life was his winning the lottery for 21 lacs. Never a habitual lottery ticket buyer he had started to purchase them after his disease. Without getting discouraged for not winning anything for first 4 years, he had kept buying when one day the numbers on the dhan lakshmi bumper ticket matched and he brought the cash home.
A family celebration ensued. Neighbors were invited, distant family visited and relatives in every family, who follow the money trail, also landed up. The merriment and festivities lasted for three days. Everyone mentioned that the youngest son, who had been bedridden since birth because of a spinal cord problem would now be able to undergo the surgery that he so needed. This surgery was expensive and prior to winning the ticket there was no way that they could have afforded this.
Shankar was very emotional throughout these celebrations and even up to the time that the surgery on his son was successfully performed. He would hug his family and cry often. No one could believe their good luck. He would keep looking at his son as he lay in bed recovering after his procedure. He would tell his daughter to come visit and cook the meat that was everyone’s favorite. He often talked about how their house needed an elder daughter in law.
It was soon after he had fixed the match that one day he fell unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital where he had got his cancer treated, but this time he was not so lucky. Apparently he had a stroke and by the time treatment was given, his brain had got fatally injured. Doctors at hospital tried to revive him by keeping him on life support for 3 days but to no avail. Shankar Dayal did now show any signs of revival so life support was removed and he was declared dead.
None of his family understood nor the sundry recipients knew the source of their transplants had died due to a medically induced stroke. The structured payment deal of 35 lacs over 5 years, that was stuck between.Shankar Dayal and Rajji the biggest black market organ merchant in town, for his heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, marrow, bones and tissues was contingent upon his cancer not returning to damage his body in that period.
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