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“I am following the IPL a bit this season. My favourite team is KKR.”
No, that is not the quote of a regular sports fan. These are the words of an international athlete, who represents India on the world stage and has so far won two medals for the country. These are also the words of a man who, at one time, was perilously close to death, with almost 100% kidney damage, and was pulled back from the brink thanks to an organ donation.
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Imagine being diagnosed with a chronic kidney condition – such that most sporting ambitions are dashed – only to come back stronger in many ways to represent India on the world stage after a transplant surgery. Sport has a way of always throwing up inspirational stories. And this is one such life story.
No matter how much we know something about a subject, there is always something new to learn. Learning never stops – that is a golden rule of life, in many ways. It might sound cliched, but every time I come across a new and extremely inspiring story of an athlete, this is what I am reminded of.
Have you heard of the World Transplant Games (WTG)? Did you know that there is a World Transplant Games Federation (WTGF) – a not-for-profit organisation based in the United Kingdom? If your answer to these questions is no, don’t worry. You are not alone. Some of the most die-hard sports fans out there wouldn’t ever have heard of these. What struck me the most about these Games was the individual stories of the athletes. Not surprisingly, I didn’t have to look too far to find some absolutely incredible stories, dripping with inspiration, right here in our own country.
When I talked to Abhinav Pangtey – a double medallist at the WTG, I realised just how calm an individual he is. Since I knew his life story, I was aware of certain details, certain hurdles that he has had to cross to get to where he is today. If I didn’t know about those details from Abhinav’s past, I would have never guessed the mind-boggling ordeal that he and his family have been through.
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Abhinav returns from 90% kidney damage to win two medals for India
Abhinav has always been into sports. The 34-year-old from Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand played hockey and football at school level and then represented his district at the under-16 level in cricket. Having always had a sporty disposition, Abhinav never thought that there would come a day when he would have to slow down. But at the age of 28, his vision suddenly turned blurry. A rushed visit to the doctor revealed that Abhinav had a serious blood pressure condition, which was undiagnosed till then. He was advised to consult a nephrologist or a kidney specialist. What followed were several rounds of tests, as the doctors tried to zero in on what exactly was wrong with him, physically. The results confirmed everyone’s worst fears – 90% of his kidneys were damaged. It was not just a bolt from the blue for someone who had always led an extremely healthy lifestyle, it wreaked havoc on his family.
“The phase during which I was diagnosed was a very tough one, especially because my mother also had a damaged kidney at the time. She and I would go for dialysis together. It was a very difficult time for us. My mother would be lying on one bed and I would be on another bed. My mother of course found it very difficult to go through that phase. My family members were totally broken at the time. This phase which lasted for about two years was a very difficult one, very emotional,” Abhinav told us during an exclusive interaction.
Just try and imagine what Abhinav and his family must have gone through at the time. Mother and son, both struggling with damaged kidneys. The emotional, mental and psychological strain that this can put on human beings is not easy to imagine. The future looked bleak. What followed were months of dialysis. Abhinav’s family also turned to Ayurveda, but it was quite clear that in Abhinav’s case only a transplant could save his life.
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And the one to come forward with an offer to donate a kidney – which is obviously an incredibly brave decision to make – was Abhinav’s sister. The organ match was confirmed and in October 2019, Abhinav had his transplant surgery. The transplant saved his life and also gave him the opportunity to return to an active lifestyle. In a very short period of time, after his transplant surgery, Abhinav was playing cricket and football again. And it was sport that had helped him get to that stage of his life. He was scarred, but stronger.
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“Thankfully it didn’t take me very long to recover from my transplant surgery because I was involved with sports from a very early age. I started walking within a week or so after the surgery. Within a month I had started some light training and playing badminton. I had to give up contact sports, because those are of course risky. My fitness levels were good, so recovery thankfully didn’t take too long,” Abhinav further told Firstpost.
In all of this, the fact that Abhinav had a sports background played a big role. This is in fact one facet of sport that not all of us think about too often – the power of sport to help you when you are down and almost out. After all, a sportsperson truly understands what it means to win one day and lose the next.
“Sport has taught me a lot. It has not only taught me how to win, it has also taught me how to lose. If you don’t know how to lose, you can’t be humble in life. When you win after losing, the taste of that win is so much sweeter. Sport has also taught me the value of discipline, how to lead a disciplined lifestyle,” Abhinav further said.
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In 2021, Abhinav got married. Now, this is something that is not talked about a lot, but organ recipients and donors need people around them who can truly understand what they have been through and how it might have changed them. Abhinav found that and more in his life partner, Asha, who is herself a donor – having donated one of her kidneys to her brother.
When I spoke to Abhinav, I asked him if he and Asha often discuss the emotional upheavals that donors and recipients experience and just how strong and courageous he thinks a living donor has to be, to decide to literally give a part of their body to someone else. While answering this question, Abhinav pointed out a very important, but perhaps not very well-known fact about living donors.
“Deciding to become a donor is a very brave step. The biggest requirement to be a donor is to be completely selfless. Only when a person is selfless can he or she become a donor. In fact, if you look at donors across the world, most of them are female. Women are emotionally stronger. They are versions of ‘dharti maata’. Like ‘dharti maata’ can take on any burden, women can also do the same. After all, deciding to become a donor is a very big step. My wife, who is also a donor herself and I also talk about this quite often.”
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According to data available from 1995 to 2021, 80% of living organ donors in India have been women. And 80% of the recipients have been men.
After his successful transplant surgery, Abhinav had returned to a fully active lifestyle, like before. But if you thought the entire experience meant that Abhinav had to say goodbye to his dreams of playing sport at a world level, think again. What the entire experience of being diagnosed and having to undergo surgery also taught him was that he could actually represent India on the international stage, because of his status of being an organ recipient.
Helping him, along the way, to make his dreams of becoming an international athlete come true was ORGAN India (Organ Receiving & Giving Awareness Network (ORGAN) India) – a not-for-profit organisation based in Delhi. The ORGAN India project was launched in 2013. The write-up available for them says – ‘ORGAN India is the member organization from India at the World Transplant Games Federation. That means that they are the Team Managers for the Indian Contingent.
“I found out about the World Transplant Games (WTG) from my doctor. I have been interested in sports from my childhood. But after my transplant surgery, I was wondering – ‘what next for me?’. I wondered if I would be able to play anything, if I would be able to pursue any physical activities. That’s when my doctor told me about the WTG and that I could participate in them. So, I started preparing for these games and we met ORGAN India, who gave me a good platform and because of all this, I could win medals for my country,” Abhinav further said.
World Transplant Games history for India and Abhinav
Abhinav was part of the Indian contingent that was sent to the World Transplant Games 2023, in Perth, Australia. He returned home with two medals – a silver in javelin-throw and a bronze in badminton doubles.
“When I won these medals, there was a flashback to the time I was an athlete before my physical ordeal began, but more than that there was a lot of happiness, because I had overcome my adversity and managed to win these medals despite everything that had happened to me and that too on the world stage, which is a very big thing. I have no words to describe exactly how I was feeling at the time,” Abhinav recalled.
The World Transplant Games – as the name suggests – is an international multi-sport event, which is organised every two years by the World Transplant Games Federation (WTGF), which is recognised by the International Olympic Committee. Organ transplant recipients and living donors both are eligible to compete in these Games. For recipients, anyone who has received a solid organ transplant – liver, heart, lung, kidney, pancreas or bone marrow – is eligible to compete. The first edition of the Games was held in Portsmouth, England in 1978.
About 100 athletes from UK, France, Germany and Greece took part in these Games. Needless to say, the Games have gone from strength to strength. The 2023 edition in Perth saw participation from over 60 countries and was held for a week. During the Games, there are also ceremonies to honour the families of deceased and living donors.
The next edition of the WTG will be held in Dresden Germany from August 17 to 24 this year. This will be the first time Germany will be hosting the Games. Abhinav is aiming to compete in badminton, discuss throw, potentially the 200m run in athletics and football at the upcoming Games in August this year. He knows just how challenging his goals are, especially considering he had given up football after he was diagnosed with damaged kidneys.
“My preparation for the upcoming WTG started back in 2023. For badminton, we have our own badminton court at home. I play badminton for about an hour and a half every day. I play football over the weekends. My daily schedule is such that I go to the gym every morning and play a sport in the evenings. Mentally one has to be very strong, while participating in the WTG, because the Europeans, in particular, are superior to us, both physically and mentally. To play them at their level, we need to put in our 200%, if we want to finish on the medals tally,” Abhinav told Firstpost in an exclusive interview.
Abhinav’s all-time favourite sport though is field hockey – a sport he had to give up after his diagnosis. But he hasn’t forgotten the lessons hockey has taught him along the way.
“Hockey has taught me a lot. I have travelled across the country because of hockey. When I was playing hockey, there was a German player called Christopher Zeller (two-time Olympic gold medallist) – he was my favourite hockey player. At this time, my favourite sportsperson is Virat Kohli,” Abhinav further shared with us from his home in Uttarakhand.
Currently, all of Abhinav’s efforts are focussed on winning as many medals as he can at the Dresden WTG, which will begin in less than four months’ time. The last edition of the Games, in 2023, was a watershed edition for Team India.
The country sent its largest contingent ever to the Games. The squad included 32 transplant athletes – 24 organ recipients and 8 organ donors. India finished with a staggering tally of 35 medals, 20 of which were won by the recipients and 15 by the donors. And yet, sadly, this achievement was not highlighted in a big way in the media. Let us not forget that these athletes, too, are representing India on the world stage. They, too, are champions, in every which way.
If you are wondering at this stage how the Indian team selection process works for the WTG, Abhinav shared the details with me during our chat.
“For team selection – this time the national games were held in Chandigarh (ROTTO PGI Transplant Games 2025 were held from March 22-23 in Sector 7 stadium, Chandigarh). All interested athletes can participate in that and selection for the WTG is based on performances at those Games. Also, hats-off to ORGAN India – they really put in a lot of effort for us.
“They contact every single eligible athlete and inform them about the World Transplant Games and the details about participation at the Games. They have given us all a very good platform. Whoever wants to potentially participate in the WTG can contact ORGAN India. They organise camps and via those you can make the cut for the WTG and represent India.”
While athletes like Abhinav might be viewed as different as compared to other Indian athletes, who compete on stages like say the Commonwealth, Asian and Olympic Games, their struggles, are often the same.
“Funding is the toughest part. The athletes have to be financially involved in this, themselves. All the money spent is our own. We don’t get any support from the government. ORGAN India also puts in a lot of effort, as far as organising funding is concerned. They try to raise some amount of funding for the best athletes in the squad. Last time, I had also crowd-funded some of my expenses and it was only because of the funds that were raised via that that I could participate in the last edition of the WTG,” Abhinav told us.
Abhinav shares ordeal of transplant process in India
The pool of transplant athletes is one that doesn’t get much attention, usually. But, considering they too are winning medals for the country surely, they can be given some assistance at an individual level, since there is no organised governing body for them, as such. Not surprisingly, that was a message Abhinav wanted to send to the sporting powers that be in the country.
“For athletes, the two most important things are training and funding. When we are training, we have to spend a lot of money on things like diet and equipment. My request to the government, the sports ministry is that the way they fund and support para-athletes, they should try and do the same, if possible, for transplant athletes. This will definitely boost India’s performance at the world stage.”
Abhinav, who runs a sports stationery and book store in his home town, also had a message for those who oversee, regulate and control the entire organ transplant system in India – a system which according to an organ recipient himself is a very difficult one to navigate.
“In my experience, in India, the transplant process is a very difficult one. You need to keep a lot of documents ready. There is a lot of paperwork involved. You have to keep going to multiple government offices – like the health department, SDM and DM offices. The officers are sometimes there, sometimes they are not there, so this causes delays for the patient, who is trying to find an organ donor for a transplant.
“I would just like to say that the entire transplant process should be made easier and smoother by the government. I will give you the example of my case – the health department has to ratify the transplant. For this, there is a seven-member panel. Now, at any given point in time, if even one member is not available or on leave, then the case goes into pending status. If this process is made a little smoother, it will become much easier for the patients.
“Also, as far as donors are concerned, there is still a taboo as far as being a donor is concerned, in India. People usually don’t come forward to become donors,” the 34-year-old international athlete told Firstpost.
We are all well versed with red-tapism and often unnecessary and outrageous paperwork, but surely, for those who are waiting for an organ so that their lives can be saved, the process can be made easier? Let’s hope someone who can make a difference is reading this.
As for those who are currently on some long list somewhere, waiting for an organ donor to show up, all we can say is – “stay strong” – a sentiment echoed by Abhinav himself, when I asked him what his message is for people who are currently not sure if their lives can be saved or if they can go back to leading a normal life, because they might be very low down on some organ recipient list.
“My message for people who are waiting for an organ donor is – ‘don’t lose hope and stay strong’. Try and find happiness in small things. Life is short and the more we try and find joy in the small things, the happier we will be, overall. If you are in good spirits, everyone around you – your family and relatives etc. will all stay in good spirits. Also, to those who are healthy, I would like to say – ‘please come forward and donate and save someone’s life.’ You can be a Godsend for them.”
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