By V Vijaysree
A younger man dies of renal failure when his household hesitates to donate a kidney.
In Kagitha Sangaligal, Sujatha Rangarajan, a modernist author and pioneer of science fiction in Tamil, imagined this tragedy. Set in Madras, this simple plot, written in spare, unsentimental prose, requested whether or not blood ties are infallible in instances of medical disaster. The reply is within the very title: Paper Chains.
At her husband’s bedside within the ward of the Basic Hospital in Madras, the younger spouse pens traces with the cadence of a Beatles tune.
Individuals come, Individuals go
Some promote prayers, some promote cleaning soap
Human albumin—and hope.
Days after I listened to the story, I mourned for the younger widow, an English literature graduate. I requested myself: what if this renal affliction had occurred to me, or to a beloved one, at age twenty‑5?
Blood family have been as soon as the one lifeline for many who wanted a kidney. Then, within the Eighties, cyclosporine arrived. Because of this highly effective immunosuppressant, altruistic strangers — even the newly useless — may donate their kidneys. For the affected person, it turned a matter of ready for the appropriate match. The wait can stretch into years, binding sufferers to blood-cleansing dialysis machines, till life itself slips away.
In the meantime, nevertheless, science was already in search of alternate options. In 1964, a younger American schoolteacher named Edyth Parker lived virtually 9 months with a chimpanzee kidney. Later, pigs turned the chosen species to interchange human organs—coronary heart, liver, and kidneys. Within the twenty first century, with genome‑modifying expertise CRISPR, researchers started modifying pig DNA with precision to scale back immune rejection and eradicate viral dangers. In 2024, one affected person survived six months with a pig kidney carrying ten edits—a milestone.
This January, Tim Andrews, a 66‑12 months‑previous, obtained a pig kidney with sixty‑9 edits at Massachusetts Basic Hospital in Boston. By summer time, he was sturdy sufficient to throw the primary pitch at Fenway Park, Boston’s well-known baseball stadium. Andrews christened his kidney Wilma, after the pig. By late October, his physique rejected Wilma. Again on dialysis, he waits once more—however his trial gave others, researchers, physicians and sufferers, a glimpse of what is perhaps attainable. “It’s like going to the Moon,” he instructed Science journal. “I’m simply one of many folks on this journey who suffered ache, well being points, and grief to maneuver this system ahead.”
Sujatha’s readers had pleaded with him to rethink the guts‑rending ending of Kagitha Sangaligal. They stated they might donate, however their generosity would have been of no avail. “The story was set in a time when immunosuppressants like cyclosporin weren’t in vogue,” the creator later wrote. “If you happen to go meet a dealer in Royapuram Tsunami Nagar, fifteen folks will come ahead to donate their kidneys.”
This, too, was a comment of readability. Within the rehabilitation slum the place fisherfolk had misplaced every little thing to the waves in 2004, kidneys have been offered, not given. Poverty turned our bodies into commodities. Sujatha, astute observer of human nature, was effectively conscious of this actuality.
Xenotransplantation gives a glimpse of a future the place survival doesn’t depend upon a sibling’s hesitation, a stranger’s desperation, or anybody’s altruism. Chopping-edge science is one thing we will depend on even when human kindness fails.
Individuals come, folks go.
Some promote prayers, some promote cleaning soap.
Xenotransplants—and hope.
P.S. Do give the story a hear – the person has an urbane voice, splendidly suited to Sujatha’s writing.
