Beyond ‘Reasonable Risks’

There is certain amount of thrill in facing impossible tasks and challenges, things which might appear to be impossible, but when one puts one’s heart and mind to it, it might become easy, and the joy of breaking the so-called barriers can last for decades and even a life time. When a person with normal intelligence and acumen might prefer to limit him/herself with reasonable risks, the dare devils might go beyond the reasonable risks, and thanks to these kind of men and women, we can boast of finding solution to many of the mysteries of the universe and life on earth. If Tenzing Norgay thought scaling the highest mountain on earth was going to be an impossible task, and beyond reasonable risk, then we would not have hundreds of men and women who had ever since reached the top of the Himalayan range.

I love taking risks, not only reasonable risks, but also the risks which would put myself to test. There is no greater test to assess the guts one has, than to push him/her beyond the prescribed limits. Ultimately what it takes to scale the impossible is not merely the brain or the intelligence, but self-determination and confidence. One may have intelligence, but if one does not have the determination and confidence, then the work would suffer failure. Those who had pushed themselves beyond the reasonable risks had reaped a rich harvest, and history is proof to this. It is possible sometimes people had to suffer failure, but that not because the task had been impossible to achieve, but some other elements might have brought down the determination and confidence, thus leading to failure.

But for the daring, even failures are not end of everything; it is only part of the process, and further attempts could help the person to go even beyond the limits of success and achievement. One need not be an IAS (Indian Administrative Services), in order to go beyond reasonable risks; every person is capable of experimenting with this, in whatever situation we are in. Even a simple experiment as sitting at the study table with a serious work can prove that it is not impossible to achieve what has been branded as impossible. We have enough psychological power to even destroy the world in an instant, and if only this power is put to use, life can be very different.

I had the fortune of experimenting with the so-called impossible task in a limited way, and I found it an enjoyable experiment, and since then I have been looking for scaling the impossible heights, and not be complacent with the reasonable risks. For a person who had been used to life in a city with all the comforts it offers, it would be quite impossible to live in a village, where even the basic necessities of life were scarce. Comforts apart, life was quite daring and challenging, and the institution was in a mess after the director had to be removed on medical grounds all of a sudden, and there was no one who had been prepared to replace him. Then out of the blue, I called up my superiors and informed them that I was ready to volunteer to go to that place. From the time I landed up there, I enjoyed every moment of my two year stay.

I have realized that one of the most important dispositions to go really beyond the reasonable risks is to consider the task as a test to one’s self and not so much a task which had been imposed. Failures may occur when one takes it as a task assigned, and not the one which concerned him/her. The second requisite is related to the first : happy to be part of the process, not merely the end. Some are over obsessed with the goal, which they may forget to enjoy every moment of the process of scaling the impossible, and that could be a futile exercise. What happens if for some reason or other one fails in the challenge; it under normal circumstances, should not upset the person, because one has to savor the joy and happiness of the process and not merely the final moment of victory or success. If this is the attitude with which one embraces an impossible, then success is just inches away.

Closer to the Kindred Spirit

For the past two years, we had been seriously contemplating about kidney transplant for one of our brothers, who lost both his kidneys, and now is on dialysis twice a week. He was in the South, hoping to get a kidney transplant, but when everything was ready, and his papers went to the medical council of the district, a customary procedure in any state, his application was rejected. Therefore he had to be brought to our place, and we had been contemplating what we could do, keeping in mind our moral, legal and ethical standards, without impinging on the law of the land. But we have realized that it is not easy to do this.

We were lucky to have several medical practitioners to give us ideas about what we could do; in fact having so many doctors to advise and propose to us, has been one of the drawbacks of the entire process, which had been getting delayed, when we wished to explore every avenue that different doctors proposed to us. Requesting a kidney donation from a non-relative donor had been a shady area which we wanted to avoid from the beginning; but looking at the situation of our companion needing a kidney, we have no other option than to explore other ways of getting a kidney for him from the non-relative category, and he has a lady, wife of his brother’s friend, who is ready to donate one of her kidneys.

What we do not wish to do is : endanger the life of a person, in order to save the life of one of our companions. Medical practitioners have said that a healthy person can easily donate one of his/her kidneys, and generally the lone kidney would start functioning for the two, and there should not be any problem. But what if later in life, the person experiences problem with the kidney? That is a remote possibility, but we cannot brush it aside altogether. We were also wondering, if one of our companions not donate a kidney for this ailing companion! That would be more in keeping with the fellowship we share in common, but would that take shape?

I could see that the companion who is in dire need of a kidney is frantically looking forward to a transplant, so that he could drink water normally, and work and keep himself as a normal person would. Sometimes he talks to me in such pathetic voice that I cannot be indifferent to him. At the same time, this is not an issue which can be plunged into without calculating the risk factors, the repercussions, because here it is not an individual who is involved, but an institution. We are required to tread slowly and steadily, so that we do not do anything which may jeopardize our work and mission. But not everyone would look at this angle.

Moral and ethical issues cannot be left out, while considering a non-relative donor; the law of the land had been made stringent, so that a poor person is not led to sell his/her organs for money, though such things happen throughout the country. Our companion did admit that in the South, it was such a case, where an agent was given Rupees two lacs, hoping that his candidate’s kidney would fit, and he would get another two lacs at the end of the transplant. I was told that the donor would get a minimum amount. Whether we like it or not, organ donation is a lucrative business, where innocent poor are victims and even the law is not able to stop it. The question that I feel we should ask ourselves is, whether we should allow ourselves to buy the life of a poor person, badly in need of money?