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The Rediff Special/ Shobha Warrier

'I am scared. Please don't leave me here'

The shocking story of how mentally unstable women in Tamil Nadu are being infected by the dreaded AIDS virus.

Vanaja (not her real name, nobody knows what her real name is) was mercilessly driven out of her house by her brothers. The reason? She was mentally unstable. She could neither look after herself nor was she of any help to them. In fact, she was a nuisance to all as she turned mildly violent when her needs were not met.

As long as their mother was alive, Vanaja was taken care of by her brothers, albeit grudgingly. After their mother's death Vanaja became an avoidable nuisance in their lives. Her brothers therefore abandoned her on a highway far away from their house, so that she would not find her way back home.

Vanaja wandered aimlessly for some time but soon got frightened when she found the place to be strangely unfamiliar. She yelled out to her mother for help while running along the road but her dead mother did not come to guide her. The public enjoyed the tamasha as she, like all mentally unstable people, was only an object to be laughed at and ridiculed. Nobody showed the slightest inclination to help her till it was twilight and trucks started appearing on the highway.

One such truck stopped near her and the driver was curious to know where she wanted to go. She replied innocently, "I want to go home, to my mother."

"Get in," he told her. "I will take you to your mother." He offered her a free ride and she got in, wiping the tears away and smiling at the prospect of meeting her mother.

Vanaja was hungry by then. "Will you please give me something to eat?" she asked the stranger. The truck driver was only too happy to feed her. A happy and contented woman is easy to deal with, he knew. In the silence of the night, when the sky was dark except for a few stars, he had sex with her on the side of the road. He expected her to shout and cry but she behaved as if she enjoyed the experience. As the truck sped away, leaving her all alone on the dark highway, she ran behind it, crying, "I am scared. Please don't leave me here."

The truck driver was sure that someone else would pick her up in no time. And sure enough, somebody did. This time though, she did not enjoy the experience. She was in a lot of pain. Several truck drivers picked her from the highway, fed her, had sex with her and then left her behind.

Thus Vanaja travelled from Andhra Pradesh to Punjab and roamed around in the northern part of India for a month. Her appalling travels brought her back to the south and finally she landed up in the southernmost part of India, Kerala. She would have continued her long journey if she were not picked up by a social worker from the streets and taken to a hospital. There, she tested HIV positive.

From the hospital, she was taken to a Home. The authorities at the Home contacted Dr Manorama who runs a Home -- CHES -- for those who are HIV+ve and are suffering from AIDS. Two months later, Vanaja died.

The moment we entered the premises of Udavum Karangal, a visibly tired Mariamma came running to Vidyakar, who runs the Home and started talking incoherently. "Let me go. They are all waiting for me. When will you let me go?"

"I will, I will." Vidyakar consoled her. It was only a week ago, three days after a pregnant Mariamma was brought to the Home that she, an HIV+ve and mentally unstable woman, had delivered a baby girl. The baby had also tested HIV +ve. A resident who saw someone having sex with Mariamma on the pavement in the wee hours of the morning had informed Udavum Karangal. She refused to get into the vehicle when Vidyakar went to pick her. "It is none of your business. Let me be wherever I am," Mariamma insisted. Vidyakar had to plead with the mentally disturbed woman before he could convince her to accompany him.

Mariamma looked exhausted and weak. She didn't have a home and she had been roaming around the city for quite some time. She slept on the payments, ate when somebody gave her something and had sex with people on the pavements as payment for a cup of tea or a packet of biryani. "Do you know that you have given birth to a baby?" Vidyakar asked her.

She nodded but it was quite evident from her expression that she was unaware of what had happened to her and she had not shown any inclination to see the baby. She was only concerned about escaping from the four restraining walls of the Home. "Let me go. They are all waiting for me. I don't like to remain here. I get money from them," she repeatedly moaned. At the Home she fought with people, assaulted others and made a general nuisance of herself in the hope that this would force them to let her free.

Mini, who is seven months pregnant, belongs to a small village near Palghat, Kerala. "When will you send me back home?" her first query to Vidyakar was the same as that of Mariamma's. She was not sure how she reached Udavum Karangal but with tears in her eyes, she remembered that her brothers did not want her at home. "So, my mother took me to Palani," she said, smiling at the thought of her mother.

"But you told me your mother is dead," Vidyakar interjected.

"Yes, my mother is dead. It was my dead mother who took me to Palani. She was very sad that I was roaming the streets. She loved me so much." Mini started crying again. Mini knew she had a baby inside her but was not much bothered about it. "I had one baby when I was in Palani. It was a girl and I gave her to my sister. Then I had another girl but it died. A truck driver took me to Palani."

"But Mini, you just said, it was your mother…."

"I remember it was a mama who took me to Coimbatore from Palani. He left me at an akka's place and I didn't like the house one bit..."

For all one knows, Mini could have been hallucinating but one thing was true: When I met her, Mini was seven months pregnant and was suffering from AIDS. The difference between Vanaja, Mariamma and Mini and other commercial sex workers who solicit clients on the highways is that the majority of the CSWs are aware of something (a virus) called HIV and a disease called AIDS. According to Hariharan, the secretary of an NGO called ICWO (Indian Community Welfare Organisation), 87 per cent of the CSWs in Chennai refuse to have sex with men who object to using condoms. These women have a strong desire to live longer and escape the deadly disease.

'Unless they see somebody dying from AIDS, they won't understand'

The Rediff Specials

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