Today we mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Amita Charavda and send heartfelt thoughts to her family.
Amita and her husband Mahendra owned a jewellery shop on Leicester’s so-called Golden Mile for nearly 40 years. In the autumn of 2013, Amita started to feel unusually weak and members of her family noticed she was not following conversations like she used to. After a blackout, she was awaiting further tests and had to be rushed to hospital with a severe headache and vomiting.
Sadly, Amita was diagnosed with a glioblastoma (GBM), but despite the standard treatment of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, she passed away, aged 55, just 11 weeks later.
On the day of her funeral, as a sign of the great respect felt for Amita within the community, all the jewellers along the Golden Mile pulled down their shutters for 10 minutes at 11am.
We are grateful to Amita’s family, including her husband Mahendra, three daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren, for starring in our Wear A Hat Day campaign in 2020. We are thankful to daughter Sneha Kansara for sharing Amita’s tragic story and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in her mother’s memory to raise funds, as well as to son-in-law Rahil Mandalia for running the London Marathon in 2019.
Sneha said: “The speed in which we lost Mum was so shocking. I couldn’t believe that in this day and age Mum could have something which was “incurable”.
If you would like to make a donation in memory of Amita, go to www.braintumourresearch.org/donation/donate-now and give your reason as Sneha Kansara (Amita).
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