Mehboob  works a driver. He married Noorjahan eight years ago. Today the family lives in a small rented room near Adayar. This year, the couple was expecting their first child after 8 years of marriage. But the November steered their life into some unexpected struggles. 

“Noorjahan went into labour 2 weeks before her due date. Her blood pressure shot off the roof. I remember the doctor walking up to to me, holding my hands, and telling me how bleak the hope of saving either one was. They asked me to choose between my wife and my daughter, if it came to saving one of them. Over the last three years, all me and my wife wanted was a baby to complete our happiness. How was I suppose to pick?" On 25th November 2016, he became a father to a baby girl. But this joyous occasion is inked as a ‘petrifying night’ as he calls it. 

Doctors managed to save the mother and daughter. But when neither Mehboob nor Noorjahan got a chance to hold their daughter. It dawned on Mehboob that premature baby care comes with its own set of complications. The baby underwent a surgery for TEF and now requires a second surgery for gastrostomy and fundoplication. These are the only updates Mehboob got from the doctors, every time he asked them when he could hold his baby. 

The baby is in KKCTH Hospital, Chennai. Doctors have confirmed that the baby has a 90 percent survival chance provided he is given an aggressive treatment and scheduled for surgery soon. Having paid for bills worth 8 lakhs, Mehboob is in no position to arrange for funds for rest of the treatment.  As a father, he wants to do everything to save his daughter. He wants to give her a name and hold her with no fear of losing her to these complications. “I doing any work I get to give my baby girl all care she needs. Every time they change her bandages, I wish to be just another father changing his daughter’s  diapers.”