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“What desperation to save a loved one looks like, I felt it in my bones.”

Prashant Ranjan

Muzaffarpur, Bihar

Description

During the pandemic, Prashant Ranjan witnessed firsthand the urgency and desperation behind the need for blood while donating plasma for a critically ill patient. What he saw, the quiet pain, hope, and gratitude of a stranger, left a lasting impact on him. That moment reshaped his understanding of blood donation, turning it from a good deed into a responsibility driven by real human need...

Prashant Ranjan's Story

Corona has taught me more life lessons than anything. Among other things, it taught me the scale of scarcity beneath which we are surviving. Blood is one such scarce commodity.

The realization hit hardest when I visited a hospital for plasma donation during the pandemic. I was contacted by a stranger whose father was on ventilation. The vitals of the patient on the reports were disturbing. The son's face was tired. His eyes looked empty.

What desperation to save a loved one looks like, I felt it in my bones.

The answer to the question, why everyone must donate blood periodically, to me was crystal clear as a cloudless sky. It is not certainly because of self-satisfaction. It must be because someone is desperate to have it.

When I came out of the exit, looking at me, the patient's attendant was smiling with tears streaming down his cheeks. I can count on my fingers, my past experiences when I was hit by a similar raw and intense emotion. The social distancing norm was the only restraint pulling him off his urge to hug me.

Despite being in a hurry to attend to his ailing father, his prioritization to enquire about my wellbeing revealed something deeper. Any help, irrespective of the scale, with sound intentions, can make people forget their own deep wounds, at least for a while.

He even offered me money. Later he felt embarrassed when my eyebrows got raised in dismay. Not that he did not know the offer would get declined, but what else could he have done to show his thankfulness, at least, what I think, when I place myself in his shoes.

As I am writing this note, those moments are playing out right in front of me. I am quite certain, in the future, very few moments will humble me the way this experience has done.

In conclusion, I must stress, when the shelf life of blood is only 14 days, periodic donation of blood becomes one's duty, if not an obligation. One must pledge to oneself to donate every three months. I must be true to you all - since then, I have not been as punctual as I should have been, but surely have donated quite often.