Saving many lives in death

Shoma A. Chatterji

Organ donation is a fragile subject within the Indian context. It involves not only issues of faith and personal ethics but also sociological issues. Within this confined ambience, it needed courage for a young director Runjiv Kapur to make a short film on organ donation which looks at differnet layers that make organ donation difficult in India. Short and to-the-point fictional account, 7 Lives is based on a true story.

A young girl, about to ride an auto-rickshaw, is shot by a young man who will not take a “no” for an answer to his marriage proposal. The rickshaw driver calls up her parents and directs them to the hospital, where she was taken in an emergency.

She is, however, declared  brain dead. The surgeon persuades her parents to donate her organs that will go on to save seven lives waiting to get organs from brain dead persons. Do her parents agree? Does the brain dead young girl save seven lives? The film tries to explore these questions and puts across the significance of organ donation in India.

Says the director, “The head of marketing of a leading hospital in New Delhi narrated the incident to me in 2015 during his visit to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where I was living  at the time. I was shocked to hear this. I felt this story needed to be told through a film. I could not believe that even today, people didn’t understand the need and merit in donating an organ to save someone’s life, leave alone the fact that seven lives could benefit from organ donation.”

The actual incident happened somewhere in northern India. 

“As a filmmaker, I did not wish to get into the controversy of placing the incident in a definite geographical region. I wanted to avoid displaying of any kind of bias of the locals. In this case, the local panchayat had got wind of the donation from some relatives who were against the disturbing of a cadaver or even a brain-dead person at the last minute. All efforts to save seven lives were ruined,” says Kapur.

According to a report, India has only 301 hospitals that can perform organ transplantation. This means there exists only one hospital equipped for organ transplantation and retrieval for around 43 lakh people. But lack of infrastructure is only one of the issues hampering organ donation in India. Around five lakh persons die in India every year due to the unavailability of organs. Nearly 2.2 lakh people await kidney transplant of which around 15,000 end up receiving a kidney. At a given point of time, about 1 lakh people die of liver diseases in India and only 1,000 get liver transplant. A cadaver or deceased donor can save up to nine lives, but despite this, organ donation remains a neglected issue.

“I was deeply disturbed by this incident. My immediate reaction was that seven lives could easily have been saved but the opportunity was lost for good just because some people had a regressive mindset. If I were to make a film on this incident, it may lead to discussions around this issue and make a difference somewhere along the way. The least one could take away from the film would be an understanding of the progress of organ donation and how legit it is and not what the myth says it is. It is above board and ethical,” explains Kapur.

Kapur adds that much went into the production and design of the film. “I was lucky to have Sameer Arya as cinematographer and Adite collaborating with me on the screenplay. I did not want anything to disturb the sensitivity of the story. So the colours and cinematic tones had to be subtle and had to go with the dark mood. The film pans from a dark treatment to a brighter one once the parents agree to the donation process and then subtly backs down towards the end,” he sums up.