When asked how long he has loved music, 8 year old kidney transplant survivor Rishi Nair will told the Today Show’s Bob Dotson – “Since I was zero.” Maybe that’s why this remarkable boy, who prefers to go by his superhero name The Peaceful Warrior, was able to find the power to make the world better in his music.
As Rishi puts it, “My special power is to fight fear, sadness and pain with music.”
This superhero was born with no working kidneys. He was stuck in Seattle Children’s Hospital, tethered to machines, until his mother gave him one of her kidneys, just a few days before his fifth birthday.
“I could hear him shout,” mom Mary Lyn Nair recalls to Dotson. “ ‘I’m free! I’m free! I’m absolutely FREE!’ They took the IVs out and he asked, ‘Where’s my drum?’ ”
That freedom is only temporary, Mary’s kidney will not last forever. Ten years is the minimum, according to Rishi’s doctors. While Rishi’s family can only hope that another solution can be found before the kidney gives out, in the meantime they’ve decided to focus on their little boy’s irrepressibly joyful spirit. And their getting a little help from his friends.
In the years before his kidney transplant gave him his freedom, Rishi learned how to play instruments from all over the world. He was even taught how to use the Australian didgeridoo by an Aborigine. Lots of remarkable people have helped Rishi learn to use his superpowers, including Grammy winning composer Mateo Messina, who met Rishi when he was visiting the hospital to entertain the children there.
Mateo, like everyone else who meets Rishi, was instantly drawn to the child. He asked Rishi to help him compose a song in the “Symphony for Superheroes” that he was writing.
“We both had an idea what the song should be about,” Mateo says. He nods at Rishi, who proceeds to sing: “When I play the world feels better … Everyone is soothed.”
Mateo and Rishi performed their work with the Seattle Symphony, and that one performance raised $189,000 for sick kids whose families can’t afford treatment.
Just a couple of superheroes out saving the world.
