Tags:
Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, February 8: S Vidyakar was once asked by a woman working in a social service organisation if he was a true social worker as his appearance said otherwise. Unlike many social workers, he is a portly man in his late thirties with a look that matches to a nine-to-five family man.
A reformist, his non governmental organisation Udavum Karangal is today a well-known establishment which houses nearly 1,500 people in Chennai alone.
Vidyakar soon plans to start homes in Mumbai too. In a few months time, a piece of land in Malvani which was earlier allotted to Mother Theresa, will be given to him by the Maharashtra Government. There, he plans to build a home for the old and destitute. However, his main objective is relocation of prostitutes living in Kamathipura area.
He feels these prostitutes pose a major health hazard. He says, "Once these prostitutes hailing from the southern states contract AIDS, they are put onto a Chennai-bound train. They have no money and they have no other options to earn theirlivelihood, hence they go back to prostitution." This, he says, is one of the main causes of the raise in AIDS cases in the South. "I want to stem the flow in Mumbai itself," he reveals.
Vidyakar not only intends to rehabilitate, but also provide these sex workers with a means to earn their living as long as they are physically capable to.
Not a man to mince words, Vidyakar says that the main reason for the spread of AIDS is the total lack of concern on people’s part. "People will not sit up and take notice unless many die," says Vidyakar who has also been dealing with AIDS patients for over a decade now.
Recently in Mumbai to take away a 14-year-old who was tied to a tree everyday by his mother as she had other works to attend to, Vidyakar opines, that such incidents occur mainly because people have become inured to them. "Most of them don’t even want the situation to change and are ready to live with it," he says.
"Today," he says, "AIDS is not the biggest malaise affecting the people, it is thefeeling of being discarded, left out from mainstream society," says Vidyakar also known as Father Teresa in Chennai.
He is bitter about the corrupt system in which all he gets is "brickbats and no satisfaction of doing a good job". "People may talk about getting peace by serving others but it amounts to nothing as long as the attitude of the general public remains unchanged." But, he expresses hope in the younger generation as they are more responsive to the needs of the poor and destitutes and do reach out to help.
