Less than a year ago, when he set about the mammoth task of collecting 21,000 bottles of blood as his parting gift to his organisation, SA Kadri, general secretary of the SBI Employees Union-Ahmedabad circle, hadn't dreamed that he would achieve his ambition two times over.
For, even as his brainchild, a 365-day non-stop blood donation camp draws to an end, Kadri and his team have collected a staggering 42,389 bottles of blood till date - a big enough number to gain entry into the prestigious Limca Book of World Records.
A hugely respected union leader at the State Bank of India from where he retires this year, Kadri derived his inspiration from a previous camp held in 1997, when the union had collected a whopping 6297 bottles in a single day.
"However, we could not make it into the records then, due to certain lapses in documentation. And now that it is time for me to bid farewell to the bank, I decided there could not be a better way to say goodbye than this. This way, we would be doing a good deed that would impact thousands of people, especially cancer, thalassemia and kidney transplant patients", he said.
Kadri kicked off the camp on May 1 last year, with a request to his colleagues as well as the masses at large, to donate a bottle of blood each. The estimate was that they would collect at least 60 bottles a day. "We ended up collecting more than 120 daily", he smiles. And with that, they've created a record that, even Limca and Guinness testify, has no parallel whatsoever.
"The largest blood collection so far has been of close to 17,000 bottles. We are leagues ahead", he says. At a function to be held on April 30 this year, in the presence of governor Ms Kamla Beniwal, authorities from Limca will officially announce the entry of Kadri's initiative into their records.
"And we've received a response from the Guinness authorities as well, who havesaid they will be evaluating the camp once it is officially over on April 30", he states. The blood that has been collected is being managed by the Red Cross Society, which will distribute it as and where needed.
With union workers generally perceived to be 'anti-management', Kadri has set a pleasant example to the contrary. "We have been having regular and extensive ENT camps for the last 15 years for the common public as well, free of cost", Kadri said.