A Christian living with a Brahmin heart: A heartening exemplification of communal amity

Bindu Mathew prays for the departed soul of Neelakanda Sharma. Latha Sharma invokes God’s mercy for giving long life to Mathew Achadan. Bindu is at a loss for words to thank Latha, because it is the heart of Latha’s husband Neelakanda Sharma that is beating in the body of Mathew.

In a first of its kind in Kerala, the harvested heart of brain-dead Sharma was airlifted from a hospital in Thiruvananthapuram to another hospital in Kochi, 200 km away, and transplanted to Mathew in an operation lasting 4 hours.

The efficiency and coordination of various Government departments and cooperation of Navy, police personnel and public made the first attempt to utilise the air ambulance service for heart transplantation in the state a thumping success.

Dr Jose Chacko Periappuram who led the team of cardiac surgeons at Lissie Hospital turned a hero overnight. A renowned cardiac transplant surgeon, Dr Jose is credited with performing the first successful heart transplant in our country. His other achievements include the first Beating heart, Awake Bypass and Total Arterial Revascularization surgeries. He also hit headlines for undertaking a second heart transplant, for the first time in India, to a 39-year-old IT professional from Palakkad in Kerala within a span of nine months. The IT professional now lives on his third heart.

According to official statistics, Kerala has an organ donation rate of 1.03 per million population against the national average of 0.26 per million population. Out of the solid organs that were donated and utilized, the majority were kidneys (67%) followed by liver (26%) and heart (7%).

The heart transplant done to Mathew, besides creating medical history in Kerala, has added a new dimention to the long tradition of communal amity in Kerala.

Kerala has been a perfect role model in communal harmony for the rest of the world. People belonging to different communities live in complete harmony here. There are many places like Palayam in Thiruvananthapuram where a temple, church and mosque co-exist, without any communal tension.

Festivals in temples, churches and mosques reflect the perfect example of communal harmony. People belonging to different communities gather together to celebrate the occasion.

In spite of multiple religious and caste identities, it is the cosmopolitan social ethos that has made Kerala a very distinct society, known for communal harmony, peace and social development.

Of late, there are alarming signs of growing religious intolerance in the state, promoted largely by the politics of communal appeasement practised by parties of right and left persuations. This has prompted a level-headed leader like A K Antony to caution that Kerala’s communal harmony has lost its warmth and conflicts between different communities in Kerala have increased.

Big-hearted souls like Latha Sharma has disproved skeptics and demonstrated that the milk of human kindness transcends all religious and caste barriers.

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