can medicines ever take over love?

Is medical treatment alone enough to ensure a healthy and happy life to people who have been diagnosed as HIV Positive?


Probably the answer would be yes if the question is thrown to health officials. They would list the numbers of Integrated Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centres, Anti Retro-Viral Therapy Centres, Community Care Centres and so on to highlight the kind of medical and health services available for the Positive people.


This is perhaps one reason why this issue is generally not raised in any of the conferences, seminars and workshops held on HIV/AIDS.


But the story of Vidya would force everyone to start talking about the emotional needs of people living with HIV and AIDS, along with their other medical and material needs - the former in fact shape the future course of a positive person’s life while shattering all dreams.


Sitting quietly in a corner and staring in oblivion, this young girl Vidya caught my eyes during an informal interaction with children infected and affected with HIV/AIDS. The event was held recently at Varanasi - the oldest living city of the world – as a joint effort of UNICEF and Media Nest, a welfare organisation formed by journalists and for journalists in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.


Vidya –an unassuming girl in her late twenties did her Masters in Zoology. Good in studies, her dream was to become a science teacher but today she works as a Project Coordinator with Banaras (Varanasi) Network of Positive People (BNP+).


Devoid of any emotional support or affection at home by her parents or siblings, Vidya developed Schizophrenia and started having hallucinations. ``I looked at my parents with suspicion as I wasn’t sure if they were my real parents’’, Vidya started narrating her story with an expressionless face. The voices on radio scared Vidya, she thought people were scheming against her and there were people who were talking about her.


In her state of delirium and hallucination often Vidya used to leave the safe surroundings of her home to take a walk. That aimless walk had no destination but it was a wandering to nowhere. ``I had no idea where I was going and whom I was talking to’’. If the closest family did not understand Vidya’s problem how could the cruel world be sympathetic to a lonely girl? Men tried and succeeded in taking advantage of her vulnerability. ``I did not know the meaning of sexual relationship. When men raped me I did not feel anything. I didn’t know what was happening to me’’.


All clear-cut indications of Schizophrenia.


But at home no one took Vidya seriously. If mother was indifferent to her fears, father thought their daughter was playing pranks. The disease grew serious and Vidya started talking to imaginary voices in her head, which coaxed her to talk to them. Since no one could hear those voices, the brothers thought she was behaving crazily.


``My brother started beating me. He said either you stop this rambling or I will throw you out of my room’’, Vidya recalls those days with a faint and painful smile on her face. The brother and sister shared the room and the brother found it difficult to study when Vidya continuously talked loudly.``But how could I stop? They (the imaginary voices) were talking to me and how could I not respond to them?’’ she innocently put her point forward. ``So I kept talking’’.


Eventually, on brother’s insistence, the family took the poor girl to a doctor who instantly diagnosed Vidya with Schizophrenia. Listening to the history of Vidya’s activities, the doctor suggested an HIV test on her, which turned out to be positive.


For last over five years Vidya is taking medicines for Schizophrenia along with Anti-Retro-viral Therapy (ART). Today she goes to BNP+ office alone and works the whole day. The family members too, treat her better in comparison to what they did in the past. But there is something missing in Vidya’s life. Her sad face tells many tales.


``I miss a special someone who could have been close to me. My parents are not very sensitive. Their affection is limited to taking care like fulfilling the basic requirements. They can’t think beyond that’’, Vidya says with loneliness and longing to be with someone, swimming in her eyes.
She misses that caring touch, she longs for that soothing hug and she craves for those comforting words, which make a person’s life complete. What Vidya misses is a man-woman relationship.
But she has lost all hopes of finding a man. ``Who will marry me now after what all I have gone through’’?Why? Anyone could marry you. You are beautiful, intelligent and above all a loving person’’.The words apparently comforted her as this time her smile touched her eyes. But a sudden realisation failed in retaining the smile. ``But now because of drugs my memory has gone weak. I don’t remember anything. I have also become very slow worker’’.
Helpless, I exchange phone numbers with her with a promise to keep in touch.


What an apparently healthy Vidya needs today is love and affection. It is not Vidya alone but so many Vidyas all across the globe – who have been diagnosed Positive – need love and affection along with medical treatment. What sometimes medicine alone cannot do, love can do. It can give the Positive people courage to face the world and most of all it can make them feel that they are needed by someone, which can work as the biggest motive for a person to keep him/herself healthy and happy.


I pray this Vidya and all the other Vidyas find their love in this lifetime. Amen!