HIV Tales from my diary-Tale 12

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Twinkle Khañna in her book ” The legend of Lakshmi Prasad” narrates a fictionalized story based on Arunachalam Muruguntham and his marvelous invention of low cost sanitary pad making machine. Hero of her tale is Bablu, a simpleton , who tries to fill the life of her newly wed Gowri with small moments of joy, in his own idiosyncratic way. At regular interval he presents her with small gifts. One day when he found his wife using a cloth for her menstrual periods , he decides to gift her sanitary napkins. The exorbitant price , however , forced him to innovate a cheaper alternative. Taking two leaves from a nearby tree , he placed cotton between them, pressing firmly with hands till it flattened. He then wrapped the flattened cotton in the muslin cloth and stitched up all the corners. Within twenty hours of touching a sanitary napkin, Bablu had managed to make his own. The narration by Twinkle Khanna took a pause for me at this and took me back to remembrances of various innovation , we Punjabi’s excel in. The pause led to a journey down the years and ended with the memories of a similar simpleton. Surjit Kaur hailed from a village situated right at the India Pakistan border. Her village was in the news for all wrong reasons in those days. Majority of that village youth were reported to be falling pray to intravenous drugs. They were in a hurry to push Manipur , the state reporting maximum IVDU in the country at that time,to a second place. It was ,however , not her village idiotocracy which made me remember her , but what made her immortal in my eyes was an innovation. Middle aged ,Surjit Kaur came to me with multiple hemorrhagic blisters on left side of her upper chest. They were all covered with sanitary napkins. I always thought the napkins were meant for something else, but this simpleton from a village used it for stopping bleeding from her blisters. She explained to me that if they can absorb bleeding down there then why not here. Simple logic great innovation. But her innovation covered another agony. Herpes zoster in such a severe form and that too in a lady from a village known for IVDU, raised the level of my suspicious to the level of HIV. My suspicion, despite my wishes against , came true. Further interrogation revealed that she was widow of a school teacher , who visited me sometime ago. Pritam Singh ,her husband visited me with chronic ulcers and their scars all over his thighs. They were tombstones of the injections he used to take. He came to me not only for treatment of those scars but also to get rid of his habit of intravenous drugs use. I sought the help of my psychiatrist friend , at the same time advised him ARV after detecting HIV as a co inhabitant to the habit of intravenous drugs in his mind and body. 
 I had just returned after attending an international HIV conference in Cairns, Australia, where I heard about needle exchange program. Recollecting the lessons learnt there , I thought of implementing same on a small scale in Pritam’s village. With the help of the respected teacher that is him ( Pritam Singh) and that village’s sarpanch, we the members of AAG, Amritsar, organised a health education camp right in his school. AAG (Amritsar AIDS Awareness Group),was the first NGO of north India made by few like minded doctors, journalists and lawyers with the intentions to extinguish the spreading fire of AIDS. The captive audience listened to the group members with patience. There were some turbulent moments for youth and inquisitive ones for elders. The elders were keen to know ways to alleviate youngsters from falling pray to serious ailments caused by IVDU. My experience convinced them for a needle exchange program. We returned with a promise to exchange their used needles with new sterilized ones with the hope that if not IVDU, we could at least succeed in stopping HIV, Hepatitis C &B in its tracks. The program continued for sometime. To be precise till Pritam Singh 

Signed off and our funding from British highway authorities ( yes we begged a funding for one year , but could not continue for various reasons , purely ours). Surjit Kaur , the innovator , revived my interest in the village. More visits , however proved futile as even this pillar ( Surjit Kaur) of our strength there ,fell pray to HIV. 

Wish her innovation could have rubbed on us for more time and we could have done more innovations for the unfortunate villagers. All however was not lost and I ,now hear ,that the village has learnt its lessons a very hard way. The incidence of IVDU’s , as per state statistics , have gone down drastically in that village. 

Rakesh Bharti