Bizman offers to sell his kidney on Twitter to make ends meet

█ As he went from riches to rags...

Within hours of this going up on social media, he receives calls from across the country and abroad with bids worth crores for the organ

Driven by penury, with his real estate consultancy tanking pursuant to the lockdown, a 42-year-old entrepreneur chose to offer a kidney of his on sale on social media, fully aware that sale of organs is illegal in India. He said this decision, propelled by his desperation, was a last resort to ensure the welfare of his family.

In a stark sampling of the state of the economy, the businessman, who had been doing well for himself until recently, has already sold his own properties and tried to find a new vocation before making this daring move. The Transplantation of Human Organ Act of 1994 has made sale of organs in the country a punishable offence. However, unravelling his state of mind, Sidddheshwar Wagaj, the Hadapsar-based realty developer and consultant, told Mirror, “In my state of misery, I can no longer be bothered about the legality of my act. I’ve nothing more to lose, so I am not bothered about the consequences.”

Remarkably, he tweeted his offer at 11.45 pm on Tuesday night (his Twitter handle being on his nickname — Siddharth) and woke up by calls offering to buy his kidney. “I received calls from Hyderabad, Karnataka, Delhi and even one from Iran.


People have offered crores of rupees for my organ. But I quickly realised that none of them were trustworthy,” he recounted. He stopped taking the calls since.

For the father of three, the desperation to secure the livelihood of his young family has been most compelling. “It’s only for my wife and children that I’ve not taken the extreme step of ending my life. But I am under immense pressure to ensure their survival. Selling my kidney to restore some financial mooring for my family seemed like an honourable thing to do,” he pointed out.

Going over the trajectory of his business collapse, Wagaj explained with tears glistening in his eyes, “For the last 17 years, I have been in the realty business and have been doing quite well. I’ve partnered with various people from the construction industry and earned well. I had my own house in the city. However, demonetisation weakened my business. But the final nail in the coffin was the lockdown that came in March, robbing me of all my sources of income.”

The lockdown broke the financial chain he operated on, leaving him owing lot of money to different people. “I had to sell my house and move into a rented place, with my financial status going from bad to worse in the past seven months. I’ve not been able to pay my creditors. Worse, I have no money to pay rent now,” he elaborated.

Such being the situation, the family, comprising his 30-year-old wife, Vaishnavi, his sons 14-year-old Hrishikesh and 12-year-old Rushabh, and his three-year-old daughter, also experimented with moving to Mumbai to find a break in the film industry. They channelled their efforts through a few agencies, who saw potential for his wife. “On their advice we got a portfolio made. However, all was in vain and in the bargain, we lost some more of our savings paying rent in Mumbai,” Vaishnavi recalled.

Now the family’s struggle is keeping the children in school, having already defaulted on their fees payment. “I do not want my children’s education to stop, but I’ve no money to pay their fees. I sought more time from the school, but how long will they wait?” Wagaj added.

While he made that desperate post, the businessman is not just about to fall prey to any and every respondent. “One guy who called wanted me to give him some money for registration at some hospital before buying my kidney. The person from Iran first spoke to me in a language I could not decipher. He called back again and this time spoke in English. He offered Rs 5 crore and claimed he would make all necessary arrangement in India for harvesting my kidney. But I do not want to be conned, so Istopped entertaining such calls,” the despairing man said.

Wagaj’s situation, if anything, is a reflection of the status of the realty sector today. Members of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (Credai) tell how the rising overheads piled atop the reduced sales have become their undoing. “Small-time developers are the worst hit. Until three years ago, the property prices were on an incline, so were the sales. Now, the developers are faced with greater interest rates and overheads, while the markets have shown no sign of revival. Our only hope for the markets to pick up is pinned on the government pumping some money into the sector, failing which developers will continue to suffer,” observed Suhas Merchant, president of Credai, Pune Metro.