The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : Online community mobilises fund to save life

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Sunday, Jun 26, 2011
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Kerala - Kochi

Online community mobilises fund to save life

S. Anandan

The patient is undergoing treatment at the Regional Cancer Centre

Shari

Kochi: In a rare humanitarian gesture, members of the weblog community have joined hands to mobilise fund to save the life of a friend they have never met.

Four days after blogger Sanal Sasidharan (http://sanathanan. blogspot.com) relayed an SOS seeking aid, before October, for the bone marrow transplant of Shari, 28, wife of his friend from college K.M. Anil Kumar, help continues to pour in from various compassionate quarters. Shari, homemaker and mother of a three-year-old girl, is fighting ‘Acute Myeloid Leukaemia', a form of blood cancer, at the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) in Thiruvananthapuram.

Of the Rs. 20 lakh or so required for the transplant and a six-month-long salvage chemotherapy, the drive has been able to raise Rs.1,95,800 till Saturday evening. Web users have already pledged another Rs 1.42 lakh and the support is growing by the day.

Last July, after she was diagnosed with Myelosarcoma of the ovary, Shari was put on chemotherapy. Her husband Anil Kumar, a lawyer, was hoping against hope when the affliction relapsed as Leukaemia. The first bout of the ailment had already rendered the family bankrupt. When blogger Sanal met Anil Kumar at RCC, Anil's bank account showed a credit of Rs.300. The hapless man had already resigned to fate, only trying to delay the inevitable as long as he could.

On June 21, Sanal posted ‘Oru Sahayam Kittumo, Oru Jeevan Rakshikkan?' [Will anyone help to save a life?], on his blog with copies of Shari's medical record along with Anil Kumar's contact and bank account details (+91-7293607979; State Bank of Travancore Kollam Civil Station Branch; S B Account No: 67089138687; SWIFT Code: SBTRINBB053; IFS Code: SBTR0000053). A day later, an English version of this appeared on www.jocalling.com operated by techie-blogger Joseph Thomas.

As these blogposts got reshared several times over on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook besides Google Buzz and Twitter, web users the world over went on an overdrive offering contributions from a few hundred to several thousand rupees. A group of employees at the Medical Informatics Section of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Thiruvananthapuram, too, demonstrated their concern by visiting Anil Kumar at RCC.

“Anil is deeply touched by the overwhelming response from people who don't even know him. If ailments can devastate lives overnight, can't we unite overnight in the fight against human tragedy?” asked a concerned blogger.

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