‘I have earned a lot of money,’ says Swaminathan, whose wife died of HIV. ‘But I have lost everything.’
Swaminathan stands at the site of his wife’s funeral pyre, his two young sons, seven and ten, by his side. All around, the greenery of south India is alive and vivid. The startling beauty seems to heighten the sadness of the moment.
Swaminathan is 44 and HIV-positive. The week before, just days after his 29-year-old wife, Selvi, had died of HIV, the moneylenders came to his house and took away the ironing cart with which he earned his living. His creditors thought he would die, too, and not repay his debt.
At the cremation site, the sons cling to their father, their faces stricken. It was only seven days ago that their mother died.
A daily loss
This is India’s daily story of love and loss – of how young men get infected with a killer virus because they behave as young men do all over the world. And how they then kill those they love most.
In the south Indian office of the Quarry Workers’ Development Society, a local group which is helping him with counselling and care, Swaminathan sits talking about his wife. Selvi had died five days earlier. He has huge circles under his eyes and his face is pained.
He lived in Mumbai for five years when he was young and single, he says. He made a decent living selling milk and often visited sex workers.
That was 13 years ago. Then he returned to his home state of Tamil Nadu, and he and Selvi married.
When he found that he had symptoms, he went to hospital. ‘When I found I was positive, it didn’t affect me so much because I knew my behaviour [had made me likely to be positive]. I thought I should test my wife, so the next week I brought her in, thinking she’d be OK, at least if I died she would be able to take care of the children. But she tested positive.
‘I didn’t tell her. The doctor didn’t tell her.’ Swaminathan was afraid that if she found out she was positive – and that she had contracted it from him – she would leave him.
By the time Selvi’s symptoms began to show, it was too late for antiretrovirals to save her. She died in her mother’s home, just ten houses away.
‘I have earned a lot of money,’ he says, reflecting on the days when he was young and carefree and had money in his pocket. ‘But I have lost everything.’
Remembering
In many small villages, HIV is a secret. No one talks. No one knows. People die in silence, denying their illness. But Selvi’s mother, furious, took her daughter home to care for her in her last days and made no secret of it.
‘She walked street by street, shouting, “because of you, my daughter is dead”,’ recalls Swaminathan.
But, unusually, his neighbours have not abandoned him. They help care for the boys.
‘The whole village grieved, too,’ he says. ‘They’d always known Selvi and they’ll always remember her.’
‘I will not die’
Their small, spotless home in the middle of this village of 70 families is painted blue outside on the thick brick walls. Inside, every item has its place: school books in the corner; clothes tidied away; water pots filled.
‘Because my mother-in-law shouted out to the entire world, no one would lend me a penny because they thought I would die,’ Swaminathan says.
‘But I will not die. I will take my treatment. I will show them that I can have a full life.’
• The Quarry Workers’ Development Society is supporting Swaminathan and his family, helping him to get work and medical care. Without that help, he would join the 90% of people in rural India without access to treatment. Help us continue to make this work possible – contribute to our HIV Fund.