But every evening, as they gathered at the chowk for a chat, Naik's friends, 60-year-old Abdul Bashit Siddiqui and the young and nattily-dressed doorman of the local bar, V K Bhimsen, would discourage him from bartering his kidney. But Naik wouldn't listen. A father of four grown children, he was usually drunk to his eyeballs. And with a daughter of marriageable age and not a penny to his name, Naik was desperate. The deal for his kidney soon clicked and the money deposited in a new bank account opened in his wife's name. It also booked him a berth in the local mortuary.

Prabhakar Ramrao Naik died last Friday, while convalescing at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Hospital. While the operation sentNaik to the grave, it breathed fresh life into the donor, still recuperating at the hospital.

``Naik was adamant. He had dreams of owning a small shop,'' says Bhimsen, referring to the rackety haath gadi selling tea that Naik parked, ironically, outside a building, bearing the legend: The Utkarsh Kidney Hospital. To the elderly Abdulbhai, Naik had said the money would take care of his 17-year-old daughter's marriage.

But what Abdul Bashit and Bhimsen forgot to mention was the intricate information network among the Samta Nagar residents, who by word-of-mouth brought prospective donors and recipients together. Anyone willing to hawk an organ had to merely spread the word and a buyer would pick up the info on this human website. Though the rewards need no elucidation, the costs, quite clearly, are deadly.

Residents told The Indian Express they often saw ``mysterious visitors'' talking to Naik at his tea stall. Everyone in the locality knew and liked the genial Naik, whose wife works as a cook innearby houses. One of her maliks was a senior doctor with the Utkarsh Kidney Hospital. Naik's friends reveal, when the doctor learnt of Naik's plan he advised him against the move. However, the `mysterious visitors' continued to meet Naik at his stall and negotiate the deal. Then, one day, they took him to Mumbai. Soon Naik was undergoing various mandatory pathological tests to which every kidney donor is subjected... He didn't know it then, but each successive test also stole a heartbeat.

Naik's wife tearful, and with four grown children on her hands, told The Indian Express she had conveyed the doctor's warning. Even his younger brother Dinkar had failed. ``He simply could not be persuaded to change his mind,'' says Dinkar. Naik had also discussed the matter with his father Ramrao, a retired headmaster who had even offered to sell a part of his 35-acre plot in Parbhani to help his son with finances, recalls Dinkar, pleading ignorance of any money being paid for his brother's kidney.

Naik'sfriends, though, admit that Naik was paid an advance of Rs 10,000 while the rest was deposited into a bank account. But police investigating the case may not disturb that little nest-egg. ``Tell me, how can I deprive the widow from taking that money,'' a police official told.