Rama Sarkar was furious when her son Manish pledged his body to medical science some 20 years ago. “Donating one’s body violates the scriptures. A body must be cremated,” the 72-year-old would berate him.

When Manish’s seven-year-old son also took the pledge some eight years ago, Rama was heartbroken. So when she settled down in the family’s Thakurpukur home on Tuesday afternoon to watch Jyoti Basu’s last journey on TV, her son braced for another diatribe against body donation.

Instead, on Wednesday morning, Rama asked Manish to get a form for her so that she too could pledge her body for the advancement of medical science.

“I have understood that if a leader like Jyoti Basu who had worked for the masses throughout his life could donate his body, we should also do the same,” Rama told her son, a CMC employee in his 50s, when he asked her about her change of heart.

The late chief minister’s last act seems to have changed the attitude of many Calcuttans like Rama towards body donation.

NGO Ganadarpan, to which Jyoti Basu had pledged to donate his body on April 4, 2003, has received more calls in the past two days than it does in any given month.

“We generally receive 10-12 queries every day and about 250 in a month. But over the past two days, at least 350 people have called us and about 20 have stopped by at our office on DL Khan Road,” said Tripti Chowdhury of Ganadarpan, which has been working for the cause since 1985.

Other NGOs that work to facilitate body donation have had the same experience.

“We used to hardly get 50 queries a month. After the last journey of Jyoti Basu, on Tuesday, we have received around 70 calls in 48 hours,” said Babu Bose of Uttar Kolkata Udayer Pathe.

Most of those inspired by Basu’s act would be the first in their families to donate their body.

Shankar Dutta, a 50-year-old resident of Haridevpur who plans to pick up a pledge form on Friday, said his relatives were opposed to the donation plan.

“Yesterday, I heard what Jyotibabu had said after pledging his body — ‘I knew that communists worked for the people till their last breath. But I didn’t know it would be possible to serve the people even after my death’. I was so moved that I decided to donate my body. I am confident that my family members will eventually understand,” added Dutta.

Counselling of relatives is vital because if they do not hand over a pledged body to medical colleges, the authorities cannot do anything.

There is a nationwide shortage of donated bodies. The city hospitals are better off with Bengal accounting for the maximum number of donations in a year.

“Till date, we have not fallen short of bodies. We need 14 bodies every year for our students,” said Pradip Mitra, the director of Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research at SSKM.

Medical students learn about anatomy and surgeons refine their skill by practising on donated bodies.

According to the medical college authorities, a sudden increase in the number of body donations would not pose a problem.

“We have the largest body preservation storage vats among the five medical colleges in Calcutta. We can store at least 200 bodies at a time. If we get more bodies than we can store, we send them to medical colleges in the districts and even other states,” said Lakshmi Narayan Ghosh, the medical superintendent and the vice-principal of Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital.

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