It’s the story of Big Daddy Pollitt all over again. All the members of the big Southern Family, except Big Daddy and his wife, know that Big Daddy is dying; the seemingly invincible patriarch has been struck down by that most dreaded malady — cancer. What is heart-breaking is his belief that he has been cured, for the truth will kill him just as surely as the disease as played out in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Big Daddy Pollitt was a wealthy man, with a family who, despite their differences, would catch him as he fell.

Not everybody has that consolation. In terminal cases, patients who are sent home after treatment often do not know that their days are numbered. “Treatment might be over, but nobody has told these people what their plight really is and that they were being sent home because all that could have been done by way of treatment has been done,” says Kishore Rao, founder trustee of Karunashraya, the cancer hospice that welcomes everybody, from the rich man to the poor, to give them peace and dignity in their final moments on this earth.

When Kishore Rao was the general manager at Madura Coats in the mid-1980s, he knew deep down that he wanted to reach out to those who needed him, but he had no idea how. “I knew I wanted to do something in addition to my nine-to-five job,” he says.

Working with the Indian Cancer Society, of which he was chairman, Mr Rao and his volunteers would go to slums and clubs and to the poorer parts of town to spread awareness about cancer. This work took him to Kidwai Memorial Insitute of Oncology, where he was eventually appointed to the governing council by the Government of Karnataka. “When I saw people suffering this way, with no idea that death was imminent, I thought to myself that it was worthwhile trying to help these people. There was absolutely no hospice care for them.”

In 1992, Mr Rao retired from Madura Coats and started working towards this ideal. The Indian Cancer Society was a tiny organisation with no manpower or anything else at its disposal. “We approached the Rotary Club of Bangalore, Indiranagar, and formed a totally independent organisation called the Bangalore Hospice Trust,” says Mr Rao.

They started out with home care at first, because they had no building to call their own. Volunteers would hurtle around the city in autorickshaws, going to the homes of the dying and caring for them in their homes. “It’s a service that still goes on, even though the hospice has been established, because some people want to end their lives in their own homes,” says Mr Rao.

The work they do is completely free of charge, irrespective of who the patient is and how much money she has at her disposal. “The families who can afford to do so, send us a donation and even if it is Rs 500, it comes in very handy for us, because we depend entirely on donations,” Mr Rao explains. “Cancer is a pretty dreaded disease and every household seems to have fallen victim to it in one way or another.”

People donate on the death anniversary of a loved one and other organisations pitch in too to keep the organisation afloat. With the number of patients they look after and the qualified staff they have employed, Karunashraya, needs about Rs 2 crore a year to meet expenses.

Physical care is one aspect of the work done here. Looking death in the eye is a traumatic experience, and as patients who make their way to the hospice have only recently learned of their prognosis, many are shell shocked, so the psychological aspect is just as important and counsellors are on hand to deal with this.

Some 90% of hospice inmates are very poor and have their own set of social issues that have to be dealt with. One woman in hospice care was afraid her husband would remarry, leaving her small children to fend for themselves. “Our counsellors put her in touch with an orphanage and as soon as she placed her children there, she became so peaceful,” Mr Rao said. Broken families are a huge cause for stress, and reconciliation is what Karunashraya encourages above all else. “When a person passes away before he makes his peace with the living, the guilt can be all pervasive,” says Mr Rao.

“Every human being deserves the right to a respectable death; that is his birthright and that is what we want to give them,” says Mr Rao. Karunashraya lets people know that life is not all bad before it is too late. Years of suffering cannot be written off, but perhaps peace of mind and dignity in death is never too much to ask for.

Karunashraya can be reached on 080-42685666.