Vadodara: Good karma returns decade later with a lifeline

VADODARA: Your actions shape your fate. What you do will come back — good or bad. That’s karma — believe it or not. Nor did this brother duo in Vadodara who were fighting Covid together in a hospital and good deed done once returned with a life saving gift for one of the brothers.
Shekhar Shah and his brother Rajesh (names changed) were infected with Covid and Rajesh’s condition turned a shade worse needing remdesivir urgently to save his life, while the hospital ran out of stock. Interestingly, a good samaritan donated three unused vials of the life-saving injection to the hospital at the same time which was enough to save Rajesh, who is now stable and recovering.
The physician who is treating the duo, however, saw a deeper karmic effect in the connection. “While he was lucky to have got the doses in the nick of time, I feel that the brothers’ good karma is what saved Rajesh’s life,” Dr Bhavesh Patel, a city-based physician who has a clinic in Nizampura, told TOI.
“A physiotherapist I was treating had donated three remdesivir injections on the same day that the brothers were admitted. She had arranged for the injections for her father-in-law but he passed away during treatment. While she and her father too had recovered from the killer virus recently, the woman wanted to donate the vials to save more lives. She asked me to administer the vials to some needy patient. I too gave them to Rajesh for free,” Dr Patel said.
He further stated that the Shahs stay in Atladara while their father too was under his treatment for tuberculosis. Around 12 years ago, the old man passed away from age-related ailments. Shekhar had then met Dr Patel and handed him Rs 5,000.
“He said that he didn’t want to spend the money on the rituals and instead asked me to use the amount to treat or buy medicine for any poor patient,” Dr Patel recalled, adding that the gesture touched him looking at the fact that Shekhar and Rajesh worked in a factory and their financial condition wasn’t very stable.
“Over a decade later, this benevolent act by the physiotherapist, who too comes from a middle-class family, saved Rajesh’s life. Good deeds never go to waste,” Dr Patel added wistfully.