For whom my heart beats!

Heart of the matter: Yours Truly with Dr Mukund Deshpande

Raju Korti
I learned long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It is a strange truth but forgiveness is a difficult process that doesn't happen overnight. Its an evolution of the heart. I, however, have a more distressing affliction. That of a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. Usually in the race to supremacy the former wins and that is what brings me to my doctor friends who have contributed -- literally and figuratively -- to my fragile heart beating as normally as it should.
I didn't have a weak heart. I developed one with my supreme negligence and procrastination. Finally, when the pumping station in my chest started protesting severely through unstable beats and labored breathing, I knocked the doors of my brilliant cardiologist friend Dr Mukund Deshpande. One look at my erratic ECG and he told me that there would have to be an angiography the next day. Within minutes of that small process, he announced, "there are far too many blockages. Angioplasty won't do, a coronary bypass is called for." He was kind enough not to tell me that I was on the brink but used measured words to say as much. So there I was in the Intensive Care Unit wondering what fate would befall me. But I wasn't dealing with a friend. I was dealing with someone, who in hindsight, was God's own emissary. I was in a safe pair of hands that had presided over thousands of angioplasties. A few days later, I lay supine as they carried me to the operation theatre for the surgery of my life(time). A bypass is no big deal these days but in my case, I was on tenterhooks with my condition not particularly good.
Convinced, I wouldn't open eyes post-surgery, there was this usual melodrama where my kith and kin shed copious tears and me not showing how scared I was. I even told my family that they must look after my wife in case "anything happened to me". So it was nothing short of a miracle when my eyes opened to survive a "follow on" so generously granted by my friend.
Eight days later I was discharged from the hospital, but I hadn't counted on the roller coaster ride that lay ahead. A few more complications later, I had to be re-hospitalized, confronted by the possibility of a dialysis since the kidney had shut down. Two other doctor friends of mine Dr Suhas Deshpande and Dr Ravindra Bhonsule monitored me almost round the clock. The first miracle didn't turn out to be a fluke and I survived another grueling spell to be hurtled into another. This time, it was breathlessness worse than my pre-surgery period. However, a good head and a good heart make for a formidable combination. I went through another surgical process through which they extracted a jar full of fluid from my debilitated lungs. At that point, providence decided that it had put me through enough tests and I started my way to recovery, albeit slowly. Of course, I am not still fully fit but I am optimistic enough to stare at the prospects of a me sprinting like Dev Anand did while singing "khoya khoya chand" in a few months from now.
You don't really thank your friends for what all that they do for you but I have decided to throw all informality to the winds and thank them profusely for giving me a new lease of life. I know they won't be happy with my proposing a vote of thanks like this on a public forum but as I have borne earlier, I had a weak heart, now I have a weaker one. And tears come from the heart and not the head.
My doctor friends have their head firmly planted on the shoulders. So it was perfectly in tune when one of them messaged me this today, the World Heart Day. "You walk for me one hour everyday and I will run for you forever: Your Heart."
I cannot and don't want to even imagine where I would be today were it not for these childhood pals who have given a heart that beats with joy and gratitude. I am saying this from the bottom of my heart.