Grappling with a death trap

Like it did for 31-year-old Manoj Hagavane. He began chewing a popular brand of gutkha just a year ago. Today he is fighting second stage oral cancer with surgery and radiation. Says he,8220;I have my own factory and just to pass the time, I tried one of the popular gutkha brands consuming just one packet daily. But soon I had graduated to 20 a day.8221;

Like all addictions, this one begins casually but soon works its way insidiously so that the victim is caught helplessly in its snare. Rupees 80 per day was not the only cost Hagavane had to pay for the gutkha. He paid a much steeper price. It began with a voice constriction. 8220;Earlier I could yell the house down, but two years back I noticed that I could not talk loudly. The doctors said it was due to an infection and advised me to rest my vocal chords. Even that did not help.8221;

Prithviraj Badlernu was not that lucky. At 33, he not only has cancer but is suffering from Trissmus or the closed mouth8217; condition. Says Badlernu for whom eating is simply out of question, 8220;It began three months back. I can barely speak. I have to be on a liquid diet.8221; Living on a liquid diet can be quite frustrating not only to the patient but also to the doctors treating such cancers.Says Dr Chaitanyanand Koppikar, oncosurgeon,8220;Such people cannot open their mouths, so we cannot even asses their condition, how far the cancer has spread, what kind of treatment is required. It is very sad, but true.8221;

Chewing gutkha leads to its classical form of oral cancer. It starts with the sub-mucous fibrosis, which quite literally is the hardening of the mucous membranes inside the mouth.

Says Koppikar, 8220;The mucous membranes harden as a result, the patient initially has difficulty opening his mouth fully. This is the first sign of cancer and the tragedy is that it only progresses with very little that we can do.8221;

Sub mucous fibrosis is a Catch 22 situation. When it presents itself, it is a precursor to cancer, but at that time no treatment can actually begin. Says Hegde, 8220;If we conduct radiation, trissmus can sometimes get worse. Even after surgery it can recur. Besides this fibrosis causes hypoxia, a condition where the cancer cells receive very little oxygen unlike other cancers. As a result, failure rate for radiation is also very high.8221;

Dr Kalyan Gangwal who has been an active anti-gutkha campaigner for the past 10 years says, 8220;Besides cancer, gutkha also causes sterility and impotence and I have seen many young men who simply cannot have children due to this.8221;

The reason most people succumb to the gutkha8217;s magnetism, is mainly its contents. Says Gangwal, 8220;Gutkhas have a very high cancer risk index, and also contain magnesium carbonate, ammonium sulphate, magnesium sulphate, synthetic katha and so on. Each of its contents are harmful to the body.

Gangwal had 12 brands of gutkhas tested from the John Hopkin8217;s University, USA, to check the cancer risk index and the results were shocking. Says he 8220;A Cancer Risk Index CRI of 1 is enough for the USA8217;s Food and Drug Administration to ban a product, but our popular brands had CRIs ranging from 13.73 to 2.31.8221; This goes to prove that none of the gutkha brands are safe. Says Gangwal,8220;Nicotine causes cardiac problems, Marsh Gas is related to impotency, Ammonia damages the digestive system and the blood, tar is carcinogenic and colodine vapour is responsible causes dizziness.8221;

If gutkha is known to be that injurious to health why do people succumb to it so easily? Says Hagavane, 8220;First of all, not many people actually know how bad it can be. For about three months after my surgery, my friends gave up chewing gutkha. I was happy that they had realised its dangers. Now they are back to their pouches. I have seen children as young as 12 and 14 buying gutkha instead of the chocolate their parents give them the money for.8221;

Dr NK Tandon says,8220;Gutkha induces a kick that makes people work for long hours without food which itself becomes a reason for consumption for the poor.8221; Like Badlernu who says, 8220;It is so powerful that after consuming gutkha, I could work the whole day without eating.8221;

Hagavne too, could work without food. Says his wife,8220;He8217;d have his meal in the morning, subsist on gutkha all day and eat a meal only when he got back home at 11p.m. Despite my telling him he would not listen.8221;

Today Hagavane is left with a deep sense of grief. Breaking into tears he says, 8220;Earlier I was afraid of dying, but now I am not. What worries me most is who will care for my two children aged 6 and 2 and a half and my wife when I am gone?8221;

Most certainly not the gutkha companies. While they reap the profits from a cancerous product, it is young people like Hagavane and Badlernu who have to cope not only with the prospect of their own death, but the guilt of leaving their families halfway through Life8217;s journey.