Gates in Pune on 145;learning visit146;

Manju Kamble possibly did not realise the significance of the visit she was being paid on Thursday afternoon.

Manju Kamble possibly did not realise the significance of the visit she was being paid on Thursday afternoon. She shyly offered tea and water to the third richest man in the world and then settled herself at the window of her kitchen. When her visitor left after spending ten minutes at her one-room home, she waved goodbye.

Manju Kamble 40 has been a sex worker for years. Her visitor was Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, who was in Pune on Thursday. Among the questions Gates asked her was, 8220;How many clients do you get everyday? Do you use condoms?8221;

Manju and her housemates had a few clients a day, a translator informed Gates, assuring him about the use of condoms. Each client pays us Rs 60 or Rs 70, said Gauri name changed, who like Manju has sent her two children to a village in Karnataka. Business is not always good, the women grumbled, sometimes as low as one or two clients a day.

Gates is carrying out a crusade against HIV. He was on a 8220;personal learning visit8221; planned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It was a tightly packed schedule, with television and newspaper journalists turning up in huge numbers and occupying vantage positions at different locations for a photo-op and some sound byte.

For Gates, however, it was a purely personal visit that was not to be affected by the huge media presence. His guards ensured that Gates, his father and two sisters were not shoved and pushed by the huge crowd that surrounded the two Mercedez Benz cars that pulled into the narrow lanes of Budhwar Peth, where Gates interacted with the commercial sex workers at Manju Kamble8217;s house.

Gates and his family also visited the Sexually Transmitted Infection STI project of Vanchit Vikas, a clinic funded by the foundation, on his hour-long visit to Budhwar Peth. According to Darshana Vyas, project director of Pathfinder International, an NGO whose 8216;Mukta8217; project works in ten districts in the state to reduce the prevalence of STIs, Gates seemed to be happy with the work at the clinic.

Story continues below this ad

Meena Kurlekar, director of the Vanchit Vikas project, said that the foundation has provided funds for the last three years and helped them reach out to over 4,000 commercial sex workers. 8220;We have 35 to 40 women visiting our clinic daily and the level of STI infection has considerably reduced among them,8221; Kurlekar said.