Chased by despair, but now living on hope

BANGALORE: If AIDS pushes you to the fringes, then Sashwati (name changed) contends, no one understands it better than her. Bad enough becoming an outcast in family circles when they suspected her husband suffered from AIDS, but when doctors in hospitals and speciality centres in Bangalore kept away on learning of the couple’s HIV status, she cracked up.
“In government hospitals, they washed their hands off, and in reputed private centres in the city boasting of humanitarian service, they treated us like dirt, sitting far away during consultation and making a fuss about drawing blood for lab tests,� Sashwati recalls, her face cold and deadpan.
It’s hard to decide whether she is gutsy or just plain emotionally drained. Sashwati is also HIV-positive; she is not sure whether she contracted the virus from her husband who succumbed to AIDS early this year, or if she was the carrier, following a blood transfusion years ago.
It’s been a long haul since 1999, when her husband showed up with THE venereal disease. Frequent attacks of pneumonia and herpes followed, and then typhoid, a chronic dental problem so bad it had food he ate coming out of his nose, TB, cancer and meningitis.
Troubles have a way of chasing some sadistically, like Sashwati. It all started off with a totally mismatched arranged marriage, in-law trouble when she lost her babies and doctors pronounced her with a problem uterus that may leave her barren, her husband losing his small ‘paan-beeda’ business during the 1991 communal riots and a long separation thereafter, when he disappeared under the pretext of looking for a job.
The only comforting thought in all this is that the couple never gave up on each other. “My husband begged me to leave him when he was diagnosed with HIV, and so did my father,� remembers Sashwati. But she held on, braving isolation and pain.
As mighty compensation came along their son, and to this day, for Sashwati, he remains the rhythm of her life. The added bonus for her is that he has not tested HIV-positive.
She recalls her husband’s suicidal tendencies on learning of his ‘positive’ status and how she rushed to bail him out of crises each time, notwithstanding her own depressive state. She stood by him, nursing him to the end, running from pillar to post raising resources and reaching him medical care.
Today, she has to clear her husband’s mountain of debts, she worries about her son’s future and she carries the burden of being HIV-positive. But she and many with the virus like her have learnt to look at life holistically at the Good Shepherd Health and Home Care Centre in Bangalore.
HIV notwithstanding, she knows she can live life to the full.