Railway inquiry-cum-reservation clerk Sushil Upadhyaya, who’s still to come to terms with the death of his 20-year-old son Ritesh in the Sankatmochan blast, donated his son’s eyes. That one act helped a two-year-old girl and an elderly woman — both had vision in only one eye — recover full vision.

Ritesh, an amateur photographer, had gone to the temple on March 7, 2006 with professional lensman Harish Bijlani and brother Rajesh to film a marriage being held there. When the blast took place, Bijlani died instantly and Ritesh sustained multiple injuries in the head, stomach and legs. He died of internal bleeding at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) hospital 16 days later.

“It was an irreparable loss, a great shock. The family had lost its most loving son. But we all decided we will make Ritesh live,” Upadhyaya told The Indian Express. “Two days before he died, we were told by doctors that the chances of my son’s survival were very remote. This made me think. We decided, and it was a bold decision, to donate his eyes. It would help those who can’t see.”

After Ritesh died, his eyes went to the two-year-old daughter of a national award-winning potter from Nizamabad (Azamgarh) and an elderly woman from Jamalpur, Upadhyaya said.

Nandini, the potter’s daughter, had lost vision in the left eye in an accident when she was only a year old. “We still remember March 26, 2006. It was the day which ended our agony. We got a call from the BHU hospital that day. We were told to come to the Varanasi hospital the next day,” recalled Nandini’s father Ram Jatan Prajapati.

The family reached Varanasi the same night. The next day, the cornea implant was performed by ophthalmologists OPS Maurya and Abhishek Chandra. “We were later told that Nandini was able to see with both eyes only because of a youth who died in the temple blast,” Nandini’s mother Pushpa said.

“As far as we know, the other cornea was implanted in the eye of an elderly woman from Jamalpur. It was to go to a boy from Varanasi initially. But he he fell ill just before the surgery and the doctors decided against the implant,” Ram Jatan said.

“The blast plunged one family into darkness but returned light to two families. We will be forever indebted to the family of the young man who died in the blast,” Pushpa said.

Ophthalmologist Abhishek Chandra said “Nandini’s left eye in which the cornea was implanted has a squint which now needs correction. We will perform corrective surgery on April 14.”