5. Sagar and Karan face the 'Real' world

One day, when we were at school, suddenly Karan’s stomach started aching. And after some time it became really intolerable for him to sit in class. He was sitting beside me and seeing him in utter pain, I stood and asked teacher for going to the first aid room. But his pain didn’t stop. We called his parents and soon he was taken to his doctor who asked him to get Sonography done. When the reports came, we got to know that it was Appendicitis due to which it had pained and he had to get an operation done for that. Although people considered it to be a minor operation, but as it was a first experience for us, we all got worried, more than his parents actually, as they knew it was not that big, just that the word 'Operation' had that feel. Operation took place that weekend and then doctors asked him to remain admitted for next 4 days. It became our routine job to spend 2-3 hours in the evening, with Karan.

Sagar always found the job of a doctor fascinating. Once it happened that the saline bottle of Karan was about to finish, so Sagar went out to call a nurse or doctor. Two things that he saw there changed his outlook towards life. One that while he was going to call the nurse, on the way he found that a patient around 55 years of age had come to get back his reports, along with his son. Sagar slowed down his pace to hear what doctor had to say. Doctor asked the son to come outside and told him that his dad had developed a tumour inside his lever and which he explained, was the third stage of cancer, and could not be cured. Only thing that could be done was to reduce his pain till he was alive. Hearing that, son broke down, Sagar was standing on the reception table pretending to read newspaper. The first thought that came to his mind was that even after so many developments in medical science, still there were some diseases which had no cure. And that made him really sad. 

And then as he went ahead, he saw a poor villager’s son who had met with an accident, and was very serious. The farmer had covered a lot of distance somehow to bring his son to the hospital on time. He saw a senior doctor who was kind of free. Farmer approached him but the doctor seemed so uninterested that he asked one of his assistant to handle the situation. Sagar was astound seeing such an attitude of a doctor. Farmer out of his desperation pleaded assistant to do something to save his son’s life. The son’s breath were sinking.

At that very moment, I came and asked Sagar to come as nurse had arrived, so we went inside. Soon Disha and Arsh also came. Arsh quite contrary to his nature, asked Karan in a funny tone – ‘Ki haal bhai Karan? Naam kharab kar ditta mera tu te. People come to hospital when they become old, and see this boy of class 10, lying in bed, hah ...'. We all started mocking Karan. All this time Sagar was silent. We all were addicted to some useless non-sense of either Karan or Sagar, but for a long time, hadn’t heard anything of that sort. Disha asked what happened to him, when suddenly, huge noises of crying and cursing came from outside. Sagar rushed outside, having an idea as to what might have happened but praying otherwise. He saw farmer and his wife crying over the death of their only son. Sagar knew about the situation but on seeing their condition he almost fell on the chair kept on the side. We all went outside, and brought him back to the Karan’s room. He recovered from the shock after a while. But still, his mind couldn't away from the distressing scene he saw.

He had always dreamed of revolutionizing the medical scenario of our country and now he had more reasons to pursue that dream. The thought of death of that small child who had not even seen this world, had not enjoyed this precious life that we all get just once, was eating him slowly. That was the time, when another person in our group had got a mission to pursue. A life to make best of medical facilities available to each and everyone in this country, irrespective of his status, religion, conditions under which he lived and a free one to those who couldn’t afford to get expensive treatments done. He wanted to be rich, a doctor who made all possible facilities available to every person, so that no other farmer loses his/her kid because of unnecessary ego of a doctor. These incidents and many other instances which none of us but him noticed as to what was needed and where all he could bring improvements, led Sagar to choose medical sciences as a career . Soon after he joined the college, he started working on a research project under a well-known doctor.

Things were changing, we all were changing. Karan was discharged soon and regained his health in almost no time. He was a fighter, all of us were. We were not going to stop or slow down at any point of time, till we saw our country as a place where there was Happiness, Peace and Love.

Karan was a tech-freak. He tried to participate in every event he could find which was in some way or other was related to technical field. He was very clear in his mind to become an engineer. And he always strove to find ways to improve anything he felt was not the best or optimum way to do it. He kept a small notebook in which he kept a log of ideas he came up with and even make things that he could himself. He was always very interested in electronics, and most of the time his mind kept thinking about those only. Once during his similar quests, he recalled news he had seen few days back and also the words of our famous EVS teacher, Mrs. Poonam Verma. She used to say about the resources that we used to generate power were limited, and the consumption of these fuels is ever increasing rather decreasing. The news report mentioned that a lot of our foreign exchange goes towards buying oil and other fuel materials which had become a biggest priority for our country.

One day, we went to the same hill. After the sunset, as city was getting lit, Karan started – ‘So much fuel gets burnt over this, cars, bikes and all other gas-guzzling means of transportation which eat huge amounts of fuel.’ I added –‘Yes and moreover these resulted in pollution which further led to many other disastrous consequences such as temperature rise, ozone layer depletion, random climatic changes and deforestation’. Karan continued ‘For how long, we are going to spend so much of our precious foreign exchange on buying fuel from other countries , when will we become self-sufficient ? When we’ll begin using clean and green technology on a large scale?’ To this Disha replied – ‘That's fine what you're saying, but renewable energy technology is not yet well-developed and too expensive. A developing economy like ours cannot afford to spend the huge amount of money needed in that. I recently read about some students in an engineering college in US had developed a car which ran on Solar energy but its performance is not amazing.’

‘Yeah, I too had seen that and that’s what I have been thinking on how to utilize this solar energy to maximum. There were some constraints related to this, which included high cost, low efficiency and uncertainty in sunlight all through the year’, Arsh said . ‘So what ?’ This time it was Karan who interrupted. ‘ No one ever believed we would be able to fly, but we did , no one ever thought we would go to outer space, we not only went there but landed on moon and now Mars too.’ He said firmly and continued – ‘Paths have to be made to reach to the destination. They are not always smooth, someone has to walk on a rough path with just faith in his/her heart to make it unruffled for those who follow.’ Everyone fell silent. We all knew that now Karan also had something which was as important for him as his life.