Despite their failing organs the bravehearts have the gall to cock a snook at the providence: Bodhisatva Mandal and Hoimanti Dutta.
While Bodhisatva is ravaged by cancer, Hoimanti is afflicted by a pair of botched kidneys. When any other person would have half-perished by the impact of the diagnosis the two greenhorns decided to cock a snook at cruel destiny.
The bravehearts displayed the gall to have a go at the Class X Madhyamik Exams. “I had problems in sitting with my books in between treatments. But I had no other way but to carry on,” said Bodhisatva who is currently being treated in a hospital in Mumbai. He will undergo a bone marrow transplant and will have to lose a year in between for his treatment.”
Yet he wants to take on the bull by its horn when he is back to normal life, he says promising to be an Oncologist.
It was like sky falling on their heads when the news of his son’s disease exploded in the face of Manoranjan Mandal says the father of Bodhisatva, a part-time teacher in a local school thanked his colleagues, the neighbourhood in Garia in southern fringes of Kolkata where he lives for helping the family through the tough time.
“He is suffering from cancer since 2013. He knew his disease but refused to be cowered down by it. So much so that he wrote most of his papers with high fever and scored about 92 per cent,” says Manoranjan thanking the boy’s teachers and friends for standing by the brave student’s side.
A few miles away Hoimanti a tall lanky girl, the only child of her parents had similar ideas too. Doing exquisitely well in the pre-selection tests she was beginning to prepare for the selection tests when she was told that both her kidneys had gone kaput.
She refused to let the disease get the better of her. Though carrying on your studies is difficult with two weekly dialysis sessions of four hours each, “I made it a habit of carrying my books to the hospital,” the 16-plus student of the BSS School said. Dutta has scored about 92 per cent marks in her Board exams.
The girl also refused to avail of the facilities afforded to differently abled students at the examination centres and preferred to write her papers sitting by her friends.
She said, “My school is air-conditioned and we have back-rests there but in the examination centre things were different. There was no back-rest and my waist often pained but I knew it was part of the game which none other than me who had to play.”
What is her future worryIJ “To carry on my studies like my friends who have been very helpful to me” she says and maintains “sooner I get a matching kidney for me the better,” hoping the doctors would find a good match for her one day.
After all she showed the courage to defy her ailments and secure 96 in Maths, 95 in life Science and 98 in Geography.