Puneeth death: Police guards doctor's home

The sheer unexpectedness of life and death are hard to comprehend, and the doctors who treated Puneeth are just hoping that his fans will come to terms with that reality soon, notes M D Riti.

The roads of Sadashivanagar, where I live, has had a few police vans and many police personnel on some of its roads this past fortnight.

Ever since Puneeth Rajakumar, who was more than a popular Kannada film hero to the people of Karnataka, passed away suddenly and unbelievably on October 29.

Puneeth lived with his wife and two daughters at one end of Sadashivanagar, and there were always police people there as the Rajkumar family would always have a few fans waiting outside their homes to catch a glimpse of them.

On that fateful morning, Puneeth is said to have gone to his gym, returned home, and gone to the doctor with his wife Ashwini.

His family doctor Dr B Ramana Rao too lives and consults in the same neighbourhood of Sadashivanagar. Maybe a kilometre away from Puneeth's house.

Puneeth is believed to have visited Dr Rao, who is said to have checked him out and found some strain in his ECG.

So Dr Rao apparently recommended that Puneeth should admit himself at the Vikram hospital, which is about 3 km away. Puneeth reportedly did just that, travelling in his car, but did not survive.

Not surprisingly for such cases, speculation soon began, in the media and amongst Puneeth's fans and wellwishers, on whether the star had been correctly diagnosed and treated.

Should he have been sent in an ambulance to the hospital, and not in his own car? Could the doctors he consulted have taken better care of him and somehow prevented him from dying?

These were questions in everyone's mind, simply because nobody could really believe that the poster boy for fitness of the Kannada film industry could have died so young and so suddenly.

Ten days later, the police protection still remains outside Dr Rao's clinic cum residence in Sadashivanagar.

Police presence actually grew in numbers as did the media vans of television channels and news houses, roughly a week after the star's unfortunate death.

Septuagenarian Dr Rao has been quoted by various media as saying that Puneeth passed away as suddenly from a cardiac event as did his father Dr Rajkumar.

Doctors all over Bengaluru and Karnataka are now drawing attention to the quandary they always find themselves in.

They point out that even when they do their best by their patients, distraught family and friends often suspect them of being incompetent or negligent.

The sheer unexpectedness of life and death are hard to comprehend, and the doctors who treated Puneeth are just hoping that his fans will come to terms with that reality soon.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com