After 6 yrs of brave fight, Karnataka Techie Manjunath Succumbs
Times of India
NEW DELHI, Jun 5: Just three months after he was brought to India from the US in a critical condition, 33-year-old Manjunath Kalmani passed away on Wednesday afternoon at Safdarjung Hospital.
Admitted to Safdarjung Hospital's ICU, Manjunath had not been keeping well for the past few weeks.
"His condition was deteriorating with each passing day. He was not able to eat anything and was on fluids. He used to complain of acidity. For the past two days, he was serious," said Sudhakar Kalmani, Manjunath's brother.
Hearing about his son's condition, Basawaraj Kalmani reached Delhi at 1pm on Wednesday afternoon, just an hour before Manjunath was declared dead. He saw his son after eight long years in flesh and blood, but with little life.
"He was unconscious and his eyes were closed. I know he couldn't hear me. I had thought he would come back home one day," said an inconsolable Basawaraj, who was accompanied by his son-in-law, Linganagouda Patil.
The story of Manjunath Kalmani, the software engineer from Karnataka who journeyed to the US in search of a better life, could have been a happy one. It was not.
The son of a farmer in Koppal district in Karnataka, when Manjunath left home eight years ago, the family thought he would change things for them. He got a job with an American company called weather.com. The economy went on a downward spiral and Manjunath was laid off.
What would change his life forever, however, was the accident he met with on May Day in 2002. Driving back home from Nashville, Manjunath's car spun out of control and smashed into a tree. The accident left him with a badly injured spine. Following a brain stroke and an emergency operation, Manjunath was paralysed neck down, barely able to move or speak. The last six years of his life were spent on a ventilator.
Immediately after his accident, Manjunath was treated at Vanderbilt Hospital at Nashville and then shifted to Sheperd Rehabilitation Centre in Atlanta, where he spent four years. He was shifted to a community apartment. His condition rapidly deteriorated.
His only connection with the outside world his laptop, which he operated by using the sip and puff method and maintained a blog. After a while, even this laptop was taken away. He also had no way of seeing his family, who did not have the means to go to see him there.
By 2008, however, Manjunath's visa had expired and on March 5, an air ambulance ferried Manjunath from Northside Hospital, Atlanta to Palam Airport. Once in India, he was brought to Safdarjung Hospital.
His family, who came to know of his whereabouts through the Times of India story, were reluctant to meet him at first. Manjunath's mother Vidyawati flew down to Delhi and met her son after eight years on March 10. Manjunath's meeting with 33-year-old Australian, Perry Cross, a C-2 level quadraplegic who led an active life, was an encounter with hope. Vidyawati and brother Sudhakar have been with Manjunath since March, hoping to bring him home soon. It was a dream that was not to be.
After the death of US techie Manjunath Kalmani in Safdarjung Hospital on Wednesday, medical superitendent Jagdish Prasad said, "He was suffering from septicaemia. His urine output had drastically fallen and his blood pressure was really low. He had three cardiac arrests, but we were able to revive him. But for the fourth time we couldn't revive him. He was on a high antibiotic dose, but was not responding to medication."
A heartbroken Vidyawati, Manjunath's mother who has been in Delhi for the past three months, had been with Manjunath since Tuesday after his condition deteriorated. "He wanted to go to Bangalore and be with his family, friends and relatives. It was the hope to be on a wheelchair again that kept him alive. And till Tuesday morning, he kept telling me he wanted to go home," said Vidyawati.
In an effort to give Manjunath his voice back, Shepherd Hospital in Atlanta, US, with the help of the Indian community there had on April 17 sent his laptop and sip-n-puff device using which he used to blog. Unfortunately, he couldn't use it. Manjunath's family is now planning to take his body back home to Hosakera village in Gangavati. "He couldn't come home when he was alive, tomorrow I want to take him back," said Vidyawati.