A story of a HIV/AIDS patient

It was a chilled morning of 26th Dec. when our team reached Malarpur of Hyderabad. In a nondescript slum area of that locality, a woman is digging earth at a feverish pace at a spot where human habitation ends and an expanse of sewage begins. She has been doing this for several days, unmindful of the blazing peak-summer sun. A good friend of mine Sasmita Sahoo asked her why you are doing this and she replied without any emotion: “I am digging a grave for myself.” If the resignation on her face and defeat in her voice shock you, her story will move you to tears.

Suguna was driven out of her in-laws’ house after her husband died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and was ostracised by the village after she tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). She lost her one-year-old son to the deadly disease after two months of desperate efforts to feed the sick and hungry child. Now she is digging a grave for herself very close to where her child is buried – she knows very well that no one is going to do it for her when she succumbs to the disease. “At least in death, let me have some dignity,” she says.

The over 5 million HIV carriers across the country may empathise with Suguna, but a majority of the rest of the population either indifferent or ignorant of the victims of the virus. It is to shake them out of this attitude that peer educators from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) affiliated to the Chennai-based AIDS Prevention and Control Project (APAC) have adopted Suguna’s story as the script of a street play. The play has moved many an audience. To prevent and control a disease that has eluded cure in the past two decades, communication appears to be the only effective weapon, and APAC’s street plays have struck a chord.

Even if the country’s epidemic does not match the severity of those in southern Africa, it is clear that HIV and AIDS will have a devastating effect on the lives of millions of Indians for many years to come. so, now the time has come when It is essential that effective action should be taken to minimise this impact.