Himachal girl shows there is life beyond HIV

[Guest guest]

Himachal girl shows there is life beyond HIV

Aditi Tandon. Tribune News Service: Chandigarh, April 18

Pooja Thakur is no ordinary girl. All of 22 years and she has

endured a lifetime of trauma only to bypass pain on the road to joy.

She knows happiness is as much her right as of those living without

HIV/AIDS. And as president of the Chandigarh Network of People

Living with HIV/AIDS — a group of HIV+ persons from Punjab, Haryana,

Himachal and Chandigarh — she is helping others in her league

believe it too.

At home in her workplace, Pooja reverses the flow of life leading us

back to the fateful day in July, 2005, when her three and a half

year old son fell sick and demanded medical attention. Tests

revealed the child's HIV+ status and raised apprehensions about the

health of his parents, as also of his younger sibling.

What happened was least expected and most feared. In no time,

Pooja's world had crumbled under the weight of misfortune and there

was nothing she could do to raise it back to fullness. Her husband,

a truck driver on the Chandigarh-Shimla highway, had infected her

and those she held dear. In the seven years of marriage, he had

displayed risk behaviour and there had been times when Pooja had

requested him to get an HIV test done.

But her words had fallen on deaf ears. And they continued to do so

even when fears had become realities. After a long pause of

reflection, Pooja recalls her pain, " My husband refused to take

treatment. He left me and my sons to stay with his parents in

Rajgarh — a place in Sirmour where we belong. When I went to them,

they called me names. They said I had been possessed and that I was

the cause of all trouble. "

Needless to say, Pooja was turned out of the house. She could not

even bid her husband a final farewell as he died soon after. Left

with two infected and one healthy son, she took control of her life

and applied for a job with State AIDS Control Society, Chandigarh,

which embraced her readily.

It was the job of a counsellor that brought confidence back into

Pooja's life, though she had to pay a heavy price to commit herself

to the service of infected persons. Two of her sons now live at

Dharampur under the care of Pooja's sister. The youngest of all is

also on his way out of Pooja's life, which is seeking a purpose

beyond the perimeters of family. Besides heading the network, she is

also counselling patients who visit Chandigarh SACS's drop-in centre

in Sector 15.

" My colleagues are my family. I want to instill self-confidence in

them and tell them that there is a full life beyond infection. The

only way to fight HIV is to arm oneself with joy and all that it

symbolises. As a counsellor I help them overcome the initial

overwhelming grief and then take stock of life so that they don't

contract other allied illnesses like tuberculosis, " Pooja says.

For her part, she lives on small pleasures — like those of going

home to her one and a half year old son and seeing him smile,

despite HIV/AIDS.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060419/cth1.htm#9