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| Azad, Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram |
4 decades ago, he had been abandoned in Christian Medical College, Vellore as an infant. But overcoming a destitute childhood and a health-bereft adulthood, Azad has been wiping tears of patients in Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram.
What he received through genes is with him even now: pulmonary aortic hypertension, a complicated heart disease that is not easily amenable to medicine or lifestyle change. But his good samaritan actions seems to be his shield against the disease.
Azad spends his time among the poor patients of the hospital. He hears their appeals, comforts them, connects a few to the competent authorities concerned, buys food for few and even arranges money for some who need it for surgery. Even students have their tales of help from him. Says Sameera from Wayanad: “as a first year student, I was perturbed by thoughts of ragging. Added to it I was not getting any money from home. And as I sat on the veranda with a burning hunger, it was Azad who bought me tea.”
Few anonymous and well-to-do professionals from Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram provide the financial support to his ventures.
Azad has had a tumultuous life. After Sister Stella, who was bringing him up along with 12 other orphans died, he was brought to Kerala by Dr.Surendran and Bhaskaran. After Surendran’s death he was entrusted to the care of an orphanage at Muttil, Wayanad. Further episodes of life saw him at Hyderabad, where he was a patient and a worker. After brief stints at Mumbai and Rajastan, he returned to Thrissur.
He joined a voluntary organization engaged in the rehabilitation of street dwellers and even went on to win the best social worker award of KILA for 1994. During the period 1995-99 he was in Alappuzha Medical College. It was during this time that he realized his true calling in life.
“For me there is no tomorrow. It is a fortune to have lived this long. Let me live the bonus life with self-satisfaction,” he sums up.
Courtesy:
Shabil Krishnan, Mathrubhumi, September 10, 2006
Contributed by: Administrator
