It was kept hush-hush because he didn’t want to use it to promote Kaabil, now he hopes people follow his example
Did you know that Hrithik Roshan pledged his eyes on his birthday? It all began when Prof Dr S. Natarajan of Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital got in touch with Rakesh Roshan after watching the trailer of Kaabil.
Leading by example
He says, “I saw the trailer of Kaabil in the last week of December, 2016. I contacted Rakesh Roshan on January 6 to ask him if Hrithik would agree to promote eye donation. I was pleasantly surprised when Rakeshji told me that Hrithik was already planning to pledge his eyes. Then I spoke to Hrithik. He invited me over on his birthday and did as he had planned, but he asked us to not talk about it as he didn’t want this to be used to promote Kaabil. Now that Kaabil has released and is a great success we would like to people to know of Hrithik’s act and encourage the public to pledge their eyes and share the light, and follow his example.”
Dr S Natarajan with Hrithik
An awareness campaign?
The actor, who portrayed a visually-challenged person in Kaabil, had interacted closely with them during the making of the movie. And so on his 43rd birthday on January 10, the actor donated his eyes. “He understood the plight of those without vision after working in Kaabil. Hence his noble thought has to be appreciated,” he adds.
Dr Natarajan now plans to make the actor a part of a campaign that will encourage others to follow his example. He says, “We are starting a countrywide campaign. Every year, we need 2 lakh corneas; but currently, we are getting only 30,000. Through this campaign, we aim at collecting 2 lakh corneas in a year, so that all the corneal blind can see. We need eyes for research, too. Also, I told him that every donation needs to be successful.
That’s why we need a campaign to promote pledging. In fact, I wanted to make it a part of the movie promotions, too, but Hrithik didn’t want to mix the two. He said that the movie will come and go, but he genuinely wanted to pledge his eyes, and wants to do more for this cause.”
Not enough donors
The medical practitioner says that the actor was deeply affected when he learnt that according to NPCB (National Programme for Control of Blindness), by 2020, the number of individuals with unilateral corneal blindness in India is expected to increase to 10.6 million. Of the 45 million blind people across the world, 15 million live in India. The downside is that 75 per cent of these cases are of avoidable blindness, but due to the nation’s acute shortage of donors, most of the cases either go untreated or inadequately treated.
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