Some bonds outgrow the vocabulary we have for family. They start as chance encounters, weather trials we never planned for, and mature into a lifeline. My bond with Aushnik Das is exactly that—above all blood ties.
Some relationships are chosen long before we realize we’ve chosen them. Ours began in the noise of a pandemic and, step by steady step, became stronger than blood.
Today, November 3rd, 2025, Aushnik turns 30! It’s a milestone that marks his entry into a new decade, but for me, it’s a profound moment to reflect on the man he has become—a man whose strength has quite literally helped to give me my “second life.”
How We Met—and How We Became Family
We first connected on 12 September 2020, inside a Facebook group during the COVID-19 outbreak. Two strangers traded ideas, then favors, then trust. What began as conversation became collaboration; collaboration ripened into family.
We live on either side of a border—he is an Indian citizen; I am Bangladeshi—but distance never diluted the bond. From the start, Aushnik’s instinct was responsibility. He did not wait to be asked; he stepped forward and stayed.
Delhi: Three Months That Rewrote My Life
When my world narrowed to hospital ceilings and monitors after multiple spine injuries and surgeries, I flew to Delhi alone from Dhaka. No family member could travel with me from Bangladesh at that moment because of my newborn baby. The uncertainty was heavy; the corridors long.
Then the circle formed around me.
- Aushnik came from Kolkata—calm, decisive, unflinching—and took command of chaos with a gentleness that steadied everyone.
- My niece Nibedita Kundu, then studying at Chandigarh University, flew into Delhi to stand beside me.
- My brother-in-law Koushik Roy Chandan arrived to shoulder the logistics and the late-night urgencies no one plans for.
I spent nearly three months in Delhi for treatment and recovery. In those weeks, when every hour carried new risks and questions, Aushnik made the highest decisions—always after discussing with my wife and family—balancing medical advice with what was humane, ethical, and timely. He translated the language of scans and labs into choices a family could understand.
Even as he guarded my life, he protected what I’d built. As Acting CEO of Editorialge, he kept operations stable across countries and time zones; teams aligned; deadlines real. He made sure my absence did not become the company’s crisis.
The Night the Odds Were 50/50
This chapter deserves its truth in full, because it explains why I call this my second life.
After my second spinal fusion at another reputed hospital in Delhi, I was left with undiagnosed cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leaks—a complication neither disclosed nor treated by the previous neurosurgeon. Over time, that oversight sparked a severe infection at the operative site, reflected in elevated CRP and contaminated pus. My health fell off a cliff. The risk to my life became extremely high.
On April 26, 2025, after reviewing my post-operative MRI, I met Dr. Neeraj Gupta, Senior Consultant Spine Surgeon at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre (ISIC). He immediately grasped the gravity and advised emergency admission. In that meeting, speed met competence—and it saved me.
Despite an estimated 50/50 chance of survival, Dr. Gupta accepted my case with courage and clarity. He convened a multidisciplinary medical board—top neurosurgeons, neurologists, endocrinologists, orthopedic specialists, and internal medicine physicians—so that every dimension of risk was anticipated and covered. On April 29, 2025, he performed a revision spine fusion—my third surgery in the same region, and the most critical.
The surgery succeeded.
During my stay, the doctors, nurses, ward boys, and all ISIC staff carried me with competence and compassion. Today, by grace and teamwork, I can sit, stand, and walk independently. My recovery continues under Dr. Neeraj Gupta and Dr. Mukul Varma, the distinguished neurologist from Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. I am under treatment for diabetic lumbar radiculoplexus neuropathy (DLRPN), a complication of long-standing insulin-dependent diabetes, and I am optimistic about returning to work and normal life within two months.
The Companion Beyond Hospitals
Across these months and every visit since—whether for treatment or to simply breathe and travel in India—Aushnik was there. He planned routes, anticipated risks, handled paperwork and timing, and treated my family as his own. He turned uncertainty into a manageable itinerary. He made the difficult humane.
Who He Is—In the Moments That Count
- Courage under pressure: clear thinking when the stakes are human.
- Integrity as a habit: doing right with no audience and no applause.
- Loyalty in action: showing up—quietly, daily—until trust becomes certainty.
Because of him, I can say without drama: I have a second life.
And we both know it. “Aushnik Das is a name of courage in my life and my achievement.” He feels it too.
My Wish for Your Thirties
Brother, as you step into this decade:
- May your leadership keep lifting people higher than they believed possible.
- May your kindness remain your compass in a world that often rewards the opposite.
- May your courage keep opening doors—for your family, for Editorialge, for every person who draws strength from your steadiness.
My love, gratitude, and prayers extend to you and your wonderful family. Thank you for being my brother across borders, my steady hand in the worst hours, and my companion in better ones.
Happy 30th Birthday, Aushnik.
I am—and will always be—forever indebted to you.
Gratitude Roll
To Nibedita, who dropped everything to fly from Chandigarh.
To Chandan Dada, whose steadiness never wavered.
To the entire ISIC team—doctors, nurses, ward boys, staff—whose care was relentless.
To Dr. Mukul Varma, for guiding recovery with clarity.
And to Dr. Neeraj Gupta—for the decision, the team, the skill, and the life I am living now.
To Barsha Didi, my heartfelt gratitude to you for support, guides and regular communication.
You (Aushnik) gave me time, your devotion and your heartfelt gratitude—the rarest gift. I will spend the rest of my life earning it.
For Aushnik’s thirtieth birthday, a humble poem unfolds, a small tribute from me…
The Return of Life
(On Aushnik’s 30th birthday — © Sukanta Parthib)
You came into the lap of Mother Bengal
like a silent thunderbolt;
piercing the abyss of a dark life.
Where light could not reach,
your very presence became
the first pulse of sunrise.
You are like the sudden cloudburst
at the end of summer,
each drop awakening
a new utterance of life—an unimaginable invention.
You are that enchanting melody
born within a silent heart—
not on any veena, not in any voice,
but housed in the secret edge of the soul.
In life’s grinding mill I was a dead leaf,
an unfamiliar existence turned to ashes;
and when I took your hand—
my world recovered the meaning of living anew.
Your smile became the warmth in my blood,
your resolve—the courage in my marrow.
You may not know this,
but in your every step I heard life’s cry,
like a conch-call sounding far away in the night.
You are the answer from the God within me,
whom I invoked with a desperate plea from my depths;
He came through you and said—
“Time still remains. You will win this battle.”
Today is your birthday—
thirty springs bloom in your years,
and every morning of my life
is bathed in the beam of your love and trust.
You are the silent star of the cosmos,
whose light is unseen yet inescapable.
You are that bridge
where the distance between life and death
meets, like a river’s two banks, in the infinite.
I know well
that the current of time will one day halt, suddenly—
yet your name will rest in the depth of my every breath,
like a secret mantra of the heart
that, once uttered, wakes life again.
In your eyes I see an ocean of refuge,
where even in drowning one tastes the indescribable joy of release.
In your hands I find that endless power
which silently returns life from death—
with unhesitating, selfless love.
