A Bengali in a Goan Hospice

Sanjib Sinha

It was not very far from famous Cavelossim beach in Goa. You could reach quicker by car. It took ten to fifteen minutes. Near the church, the building was pink-coloured, reminding you the bustling pink-city Jaypur, and was surrounded by not a very towering wall. One could see from the road, what was going on inside and the insiders could well smell the diesel of the traffic and hear the sound of busy life that had been going on the road endlessly. Goans usually construct their houses in a typical Portuguese fashion. This building was different.
Going up the stairs you were greeted by a very long verandah which had rooms adjoined side by side. Very clean and tidy. Contrary to all expectations it’s as clean as a new pin. Really, things are not always what they appear to be!
Though it’s the only hospice in Goa, in fact one of the very few in India itself, that gives shelters to the HIV Positive people, there is no smell of death. Such a warm and life-affirming place it was that when you entered into those rooms and found people, some of them almost skeletal, lying on their beds, you, still, could recognize hopes and dreams in their eyes.
Some of them could move obviously, coming out from their room to take a breath of air and life and one of them suddenly asked me, “Are you coming from Calcutta? I used to stay near Calcutta.”
Surprise! I had never dreamt of finding a Bengali gentleman in a Goa hospice. After all it’s near about two thousand and five hundred kilometers far from Bengal which is another state altogether.
Bengal to Goa. It’s a long way meandering through many shades of time. But this is life and Ratan (name changed) tried to live it up to the fullest ending up into a HIV positive person. Standing on the door of death, his conscience was clear. Now he could evaluate that had he known about the HIV/AIDS earlier he could have taken the precautions. His only regret was that lack of knowledge had made all the differences between life and death.
If the volunteers of Caritas-Goa, a Christian community care and support centre, did not provide him shelters, he would have died on the street completely uncared of. Similar stories were lying in wait in the interior part of the hospice.
There are about ten people. Age range is seven to seventy. All HIV positive. All are victims of an age-told stigma that HIV/AIDS is infectious, it kills and it’s so deadly that it’s not at all treatable. All of them have been thrown out from their abode; even their near ones did not take the ‘so called risks’ of putting up with them in their respective residences. Like all other darkness it still prevails. Especially in India, where in some villages people mistakenly put on condoms whole day so that they would not get AIDS, it’s a tough battle.
Sister Vineeta was in charge. She said, “At first we went to their home over and over again but failed to convince their kith and kin that one could share everything with HIV positive persons except semen, breast milk, blood and vaginal fluids. Now it has started working very slowly. People understand that HIV/AIDS is treatable. Many people with HIV/AIDS can enjoy relatively good health for years and live happily. Though there is still a long way to go in search of a curable vaccine, many more years can be added to the positive persons through medication.”
Sister Vineeta felt it’s a good sign. In fact it’s quite extraordinary because ordinary people, who had thrown HIV positive persons out of their home, now started coming to see them in the hospice, irrespective of their religion.
Good sign indeed. In a country like India where religious bigotry often has made the progress rate slower, Caritas-Goa revolutionized the idea of serving people, very silently, casting aside the religious biases.
How had they done it? We met Sanju and Sanku. Two kids who have inherited HIV from their parents who are dead now. Volunteers of Caritas-Goa rescued them from street and provided ART and shelters. Moreover they both have started going to school. Who can say, may be during the course of their treatment the long wait will be over and the most wanted vaccine would come out and Sanju, Sanku will have survived like any healthy kids? Sister Vineeta said, “Let us be hopeful and pray. In the beginning we had faced stiff resistance from every quarter. From the neighborhood, the school which initially refused to admit them. But at the end our patience had won over every obstacle.”
Let us be hopeful too. From Bengal to Goa, situation has been turning to be positive, in the literary sense, as people gradually understanding that HIV /AIDS is no longer a taboo word. There are campaigns all over India to dispel the prejudice that HIV positive/AIDS is confined to the MSM(males who have sex with males). There are debates also. Asha, the spokesperson of INP+ (Indian network for people living with HIV/AIDS), did not support the idea of putting up people living with HIV/AIDS in the hospice. She felt doing this would only marginalize PLWHA (people living with HIV/AIDS) further and moreover common people would become more reluctant to the cause. Accepting the process of putting up PLWHA in the hospice would invariably mean another acceptance that HIV/AIDS is synonymous to DEATH and STYGMA. That’s why; INP+ is always for treating from home not outside. Like all other illnesses HIV positive person should share the same bed, same food, and same room and enjoy living like a normal person, asserted Asha.
So debates are on. It’s also a very good sign indeed as we know; after all, to clear up common misconception about HIV/AIDS some brain churning is necessary and always welcome.