Even up to his last breath, San­jay Sam­pat re­mained strong and fought to re­turn home to his fam­i­ly and friends. It was one of the few com­forts that Sam­pat’s fam­i­ly took at his fu­ner­al yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing his pass­ing at Max Su­per Spe­cial­ty Hos­pi­tal in Saket, In­dia, last month.

It was a shock across the coun­try, as many peo­ple ral­lied be­hind the bud­ding 21-year-old, who doc­tors di­ag­nosed with Leukaemia in De­cem­ber 2021.

Dozens of rel­a­tives, friends, neigh­bours and col­leagues showed up at the fam­i­ly home in Mafek­ing Vil­lage, Ma­yaro, for the cer­e­mo­ny.

In a mov­ing trib­ute, his broth­er Don­ald Sam­pat said de­spite hav­ing a short spell on earth, Sam­pat lived his best life.

Like oth­ers, Don­ald re­called that Sam­pat could hold any child in his arms and make them smile. With such a lov­ing per­son­al­i­ty, it was the rea­son why his friends were al­ways around him.

“I want to tell every­one here that can­cer, leukaemia, is the Dev­il. It will make the rich get poor. San­jay was one of the most de­ter­mined and pos­i­tive peo­ple I know. I am not say­ing this just be­cause San­jay is de­ceased here to­day. He was very pos­i­tive. Peo­ple ques­tion me, ‘so how did he go down so fast?’”

Don­ald told them: “Do not ques­tion me. Ques­tion God.”

While the fam­i­ly suf­fered the tor­ment of watch­ing can­cer change his life, Don­ald said no one knew what Sam­pat held in­side. He told mourn­ers he was frus­trat­ed af­ter spend­ing one night at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal, but his broth­er stayed close to eight weeks.

There was hope when Sam­pat and his par­ents, Shan­ty and Cha­tram Sam­pat, flew to In­dia for life-sav­ing surgery.

Don­ald said the two months spent across there were not easy.

De­spite un­der­go­ing a bone mar­row trans­plant that should have saved his life, how­ev­er, San­jay de­vel­oped a bac­te­r­i­al in­fec­tion dur­ing the post-op­er­a­tion process. Af­ter spend­ing a few days in an In­ten­sive Care Unit, Sam­pat died on Au­gust 22.

Don­ald said the on­ly thing that com­fort­ed him was know­ing that Sam­pat fought hard and was pos­i­tive to the end.

“San­jay un­der­stood, and he knew every­one had his back and was sup­port­ing him. He knew that, and he is look­ing over us right now, giv­ing me the strength to do this. He made me strong.”

De­spite the tears, it was not al­ways a som­bre af­fair.

In cel­e­brat­ing Sam­pat’s life, his fel­low car en­thu­si­asts burned some rub­ber on the road­way with a thrilling dis­play in their cus­tomised cars.