Weak in flesh, positive in battling the scourge

NEW DELHI: The sun has set, and in the dark corner of Panchkuian Road, which branches off from Connaught Place,

sex workers

wait for their work to begin. From the shadows a pair of eyes scans the street, but not for customers. The eyes are on the sex workers themselves. They belong to a bespectacled 62-year-old. As Khushi trudges around, a walking stick in hand, she is keenly looking out for those who might need help in seeking treatment to keep the human immunodeficiency virus at bay.

On World AIDS Day on December 1, people like Khushi will not be feted. They are the anonymous troops engaged in the ground battle against the

scourge

. An HIV patient herself and a woman trapped in a man’s body, Khushi has only ever lived life in the margins. But undeterred, she has worked for 15 years now to check the spread of HIV by providing the sex walkers with condoms and identifying AIDS patients and persuading them to accompany her to hospitals.

Born in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, known for its eponymous switchblade, Khushi (name changed to protect her identity) experienced the horrors of bullying and taunts early in life. Her protective mother sent her to a woman doctor’s home hoping this would shelter her from the cruel world, but the 10-year-old domestic help got no respite and was sexually abused by the doctor’s son. “When I couldn’t bear it any longer, I ran away to Delhi to live with a relative hoping that a new city would give me a chance at a new life,” the ageing transgender recalls with a sigh.

In the capital, she spent her days selling incense sticks on the street, doing odd jobs, vulnerable and exploited several times over. “There were days when I was so scared and shaken that I didn’t have the courage to leave my room,” she says. Then, in her late 30s, Khushi was diagnosed with HIV.

Her

flesh

, literally, was

weak

, but her spirit was willing. Her treatment first in AIIMS and then in Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital bore fruit and she became an HIV survivor. A meeting with RML medical counsellor Poonam Goel changed her attitude to life. Goel taught her how to recognise the symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases and encouraged her to find patients of such among sex workers and bring them to hospital.

This proved easier said than done. Many sex workers were unwilling to be seen in a hospital. But Goel testifies, “Khushi brought in hundreds of HIV-positive people from place like Azadpur Mandi and Jahangirpuri who had been unwilling to seek treatment fearing the disclosure of their identity. She convinced them to come to the hospital, even sometimes if in a burka.”

Khushi’s biggest challenge is helping the HIV patients overcome the fear of stigma. She convinces those she meets in her mission field in Azadpur Mandi, Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, Model Town and Sindhu border by telling them that unlike her diagnosis in the early 1990s when medicines were not easily available, free treatment at government hospitals can help them live a long life. “My job doesn’t finish with helping them with the formalities,” she adds. “I keep tabs on the patients. I keep their medical cards with me so I know whether they are taking home the prescribed medicines from the hospitals in time.”

On December 1, as the night falls and people retreat into their houses, Khushi steps out, knowing she has an unfinished business on the streets.