Ms. Pallavi Kumar, Executive
Director,
, Delhi-NCR represented the Foundation at the event.
She recounted the Foundation's first encounter with Gandhi's film. She
mentioned that snippets from the film were screened last year on 4
April,
2012 at 'Samarthan' - a fundraising and awareness event organised by MOHAN Foundation
at the Lodi - The Garden Restaurant, Lodhi Gardens, New Delhi. It was an
evening of music and dinner with filmmakers Shekhar Kapoor and Anand
Gandhi publicly expressing their support for the cause.
Ms. Kumar further added that the
screening was received well and everyone present at the event instantly knew it
was going to be a special movie. Also she expressed that the Foundation was
thrilled to see a mainstream movie feature
organ donation as the central theme
and specially acknowledged the fact that the issue was dealt with in a
realistic and sensitive manner.
The
Ship of Theseus takes
its title from the Greek myth in which Theseus' ship was repaired,
plank-by-plank, to the point where no material from the original remained in
the restored craft. A story used by Greek philosopher Plutarch to illustrate
the paradoxical nature of life. Gandhi's debut film addresses existential
questions through the stories of three individuals based in contemporary
Mumbai. All three tales indicate their individual experience with
organ transplantation.
The film released in India on 19
th July, 2013.
Kiran Rao believes that there is
"great merit" in saving a life. She said, "This film has given
me a chance to think about organ donation deeply. Earlier, I thought we can
only
donate our eyes,
but the fact that each and every organ of our body can be used to save
somebody's life, I got to know about this from the film."
Interacting with the media, Anand
Gandhi said, "It has been a very strong concern for me and my friends; if my
statistics are correct, in India 3,15,000 people die from the absence of
availability of organs and it's a situation that can be corrected very easily
and does not require a huge effort."
Also present at the event was
Sohum Shah, co-producer and actor in the film. He said that if the film
inspires even a single person to be an organ donor, then he would have more
than recovered his investment in the film.
Neeraj Kabi, one of the main
characters in the film said that he had always wanted to be an organ donor but
never really knew how to go about it.
MOHAN Foundation is a not for profit organization that coordinates organ donation and transplantations activities in India. It is a registered NGO with Income Tax exemption under Section 80G and 35AC and has offices in Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and USA.
Source: Medindia