“Even if things don’t unfold the way you expected, don’t be disheartened or give up. One who continues to advance will win in the end.” Daisaku Ikeda
Archit Gupta, a 29 years old young man who returned from New Zealand just before lockdown on 5th Mar’18 to celebrate Holi festival and meet his family members in New Delhi but stuck due to lockdown in India. Lockdown was announced before he could complete his holidays and returned back. He returned home after 9 months to celebrate Holi festival and was on holidays for 30 days but as it is said “Destiny Matters”, destiny has planned something of his interest. Archit went to New Zealand for post graduation and later joined a company there.
Archit always wanted to do something for society after an incident from his school days which made him to think about the society. During school days, like many other youngsters Archit wanted to live his life freely. When he was 18 years old he started drinking alcohol and one day he was drunk and riding a bike on high speed. Around 2am he lost control of his bike because he was not in senses and met with an accident. As it was too late in the night no one was on the roads and soon someone has seen Archit laying in a pool of blood and informed police to take him to hospital. The gentleman accompanied till hospital and admitted Archit in the hospital. Archit was on ventilator for 17-18 days and his jaw was broken, doctors inserted road in his leg. During this period he realised the importance of life and was thanking the gentleman every day who has dropped him to hospital and saved his life.
From that day Archit has started feeling positive towards humanity because someone has saved his life and he decided to help others to save the human life. Also he pledged not to do bike stunts ever and said no to drunken-driving. He also raised awareness amongst his friends about the road safety and traffic rules.
One day during lockdown he saw a video on social media of a fruit seller in Paschim Vihar area where he live. People looted mangoes of that fruit seller because he was not around. After watching that video, he decided to help the fruit seller and raised funds to help him. With the help of other people and friends, he has collected ~8 lacs and donated that money to the fruit seller. From there he has started helping people who are struggling for food due to lockdown. He has distributed ration to thousands during the lockdown.
Later he decided to help the corona patients when a covid-19 patient was denied admission in a pvt hospital, Archit has decided to put the matter on twitter and tagged the relevant authorities. The required support was provided to the patient within an hour of his twit. This has encouraged Archit to work more towards this as bed availability was an issue in some hospitals in Delhi. Archit has collated details of all 11 districts officials from all department to reach out immediately with the help needed.
Authorities had supported his initiative in helping the covid-19 patients. Specially the District Magistrate Ms Neha Bansal, she has encouraged Archit a lot in his initiatives. So far Archit has helped 132 people and supported them to get admission in hospitals with the help of authorities. Archit became very famous in his circle for providing medical help to the covid-19 patients. Then a new challenge of plasma donation arises, multiple requests started coming for plasma donation for critical patients. To support the plasma donations Archit started working with team “SOS India” founded by Nitesh Singh. Team “SOS India” is working tirelessly to support the blood requirements and their aim is to provide blood support to everyone in need by 2024.
In Delhi we have Plasma bank at ILBS hospital, but in other cities we don’t have plasma bank which a big challenge. Also few people don’t come forward to donate plasma after recovery from covid-19. While sharing the experience with donors Archit said “Some people don’t want to donate plasma because they had bad experience when they were corona positive and required support was provided to them. But we need to think about saving a human life and we should come forward to help. When we call the donors, almost 60% people show willingness to donate the plasma but finally 20-25% people come forward for donation.”
As per Archit “anyone can get infected with corona, so it’s a chance to save someone’s life.” Archit is a strong believer of “Nar Seva, Narayan Seva” and this is the need of the hour.
While sharing the future plans Archit has mentioned that he will stay connected with team SOS India even after leaving India as we can support the team virtually. He will continue supporting the community in New Zealand as well as India. He is very keen to help the unemployed youth from underprivileged community.
Connect with Archit on: https://twitter.com/architgupta99
THANKS Team for bringing such wonderful stories and letting us aware about these real life heroes …great work…wish you good luck…doing great work!!!
A real life hero, who is saving lives.