Help pours in for HIV +ve widow, sons find schools

Kuni had come to live at Birtol with her two sons three months after her husband, a factory worker, died of AIDS in Mumbai. By the time she realised the disease he was suffering from, she had also contracted it. The stigma followed her to Bristol, with a local school refusing to take her elder son, Saroj, till he submitted a medical certificate that he was not HIV positive. The younger son Rajesh was looked upon with even more suspicion as he used to stay in Mumbai with his parents. Ironically, a medical test had cleared him of HIV.

But all that has changed with the attitudes of the villagers. They intervened with Headmaster of Brahamanbadi Primary School to take in Saroj. Rajesh too has got admission, in a Sainik School that had earlier refused to take him, following the intervention of Kuni’s brother-in-law Khirod.

Villagers including Kuni’s own family who used to avoid her and her sons now freely interact with her. Kuni’s sister-in-law, who earlier shunned her, has started eating with her. ‘‘We did not know about the disease as we are illiterate. Besides there is little chance to know about AIDS from television here as there is no electricity,’’ she says.