Salaam Venky: The Demands of Care and the Dilemma of Consent

Abstract

Chronic illness derails the life of both the patient and the caregiver. It puts people in situations for which one may never be prepared. It brings up morally challenging situations forcing people to act against ones wishes or forces the law of the land to look ahead of the times, beyond the established norm of the day. This paper is an attempt to understand the struggles of caregivers and patients in the face of a debilitating illness, the demands of caring and the question of consent. The paper analyses the movie Salaam Venky, which is about a person with degenerative disease who wishes to donate organs but fails to do so as there is no provision for harvesting vital organs from a living donor. Consent and care are vital aspects of treating chronic illness. One can only imagine the plight of caregivers who have to wage war against the established norms of the society while hope is too distant and the situation is too grim.