Building On Positives

Its fuchsia colour isn’t the only unconventional aspect about Satyakam, this small house nestled in the middle of huge, ostentatious bungalows in Meerut’s tony Ganganagar locality. Making it equally special are the 12 children who live in the house, all of them HIV-positive and blessed to have found parents in Ajay Sharma, 41, a former teacher at the Government Inter College in nearby Phalwada, and his wife Babita, who teaches at the Ismail Degree College.

The excited chatter of the boys reaches you before you reach the house. Ring the bell, and you step into a world made a better place. Tall, lanky Balwant greets us at the entrance, his hands folded and a bright smile on his face. Behind him, I can spot a kitchen garden with bright yellow flowers in plastic bottles and pale green gourds planted by the kids. The children themselves—from Balwant, the oldest at 17, to Samrat, the youngest aged a delicate 5—are dressed uniformly in beige shirts and pants, to “avoid fights and confusion”. Their rooms are painted a bright blue, and adorned with stuffed toys, colourful cards by the children, and posters of goddess Saraswati and Swami Vivekananda that read, ‘Strength is life, weakness is death’.

His 12 sons address the bespectacled Ajay as ‘pitaji’. Ten years ago, he had a brain haemorrhage and slipped into a coma for 15 days. This close encounter with death helped him “understand the importance of being alive”, says Ajay, dictating his decision to quit his full-time job and dedicate the rest of his life to the cause of underprivileged children. Wife Babita has been a pillar of support; it’s her salary that Satyakam runs on.

The couple has two biological children of their own. “I’m fortunate to be a mother to these kids. My two children consider them as their own brothers; we are all part of the same family,” she says. Friends and neighbours help them in both cash and kind if there is a crisis; well-wishers have don­ated all the toys and clothes. Their Facebook page and website (www.satyakamindia.org) has even got them help from abroad. Money, however, has never been a problem, says Babita, it doesn’t take much to bring up 12 children if done simply and wisely.

The couple enforces a strict daily regimen of yoga, timely meals and sleeping early to ensure a healthy and disciplined lifestyle for their children. They have to be coaxed, however, to take the bitter medicines twice a day. Specific care is taken to see that they eat properly and stay clean so that they don’t fall sick. However, more than good food and cleanliness, love and acceptance by society is what the couple feels is more crucial for the children. “Most of them die not because of the disease but because of discrimination,” says Ajay. “Initially my kids were shunned by the neighbours and society but now slowly they have evolved and come forward to accept them. Visitors come and play with them, gift them toys.” The kids have even participated in reality shows like India’s Got Talent and Dance India Dance.

In the end, though, it remains just a semblance of normalcy, the harsh truth never too far behind. Balwant has already reached Stage II of the disease and knows his condition may worsen any day. But he is happy to be at Satyakam. He used to live with his elder brother in Noida, but domestic strife forced him out. “I will never go back,” he says. “I like it here. This place keeps me busy.”

Social rejection, poverty and humiliation have been a part of almost all the other children’s lives as well. Often, they had no one to take care of them after their parents died of AIDS-related complications, and it was finally in the Sharma household that they found love and shelter. Some children have gone back too—Aniket, 11, lived in Satyakam for over two years before his relatives fin­ally accepted him and he went back to stay with them.

The Satyakam children could be considered fortunate in some sense. Many others continue to be shunned and ostracised by society, the ignorance and bias related to HIV-positive children being shocking. An estimated 2,20,000 children are infected by HIV/AIDS. About 55,000-60,000 children are born every year to mothers who are HIV-positive. Without treatment, these newborns stand a 30 per cent chance of becoming infected during the mother’s pregnancy, labour or through breastfeeding. Eleven of the Sharmas’ 12 children contracted HIV at birth. The 12th, Suraj, was molested by a security guard at an orphanage and got the virus. Not knowing any better, the chubby seven-year-old wants to be a police officer when he grows up.

The Sharmas adopted their youngest, Samrat, from a hospital when he was an emaciated and malnourished kid of two. Five today, he is ecstatic to have a family to call his own.

“They have faint memories of their past,” says Deepak Kumar, a social worker who looks after the children. “We encourage them to live in the present. Except for the eldest, none of them knows what they are suffering from.” All the children go to a teacher’s house nearby to learn English, Hindi and maths as parents of healthy children object to them going to schools their children go to. “They are all bright students but they can’t be put into classes. Some 11-year-olds are still learning the alphabet,” says Neema, who has been teaching them for three years.

“There are no separate homes for kids suffering from HIV because ideally they should not be biased and segregated from other kids in an orphanage. But the reality is most of them are thrown out of orphanages,” says Ajay. The couple wishes to adopt more kids and increase the number to 50. Right now, the adoption laws don’t allow them to take in girls with the boys. So the Sharmas are planning to rent out a separate house for girl children infec­ted with HIV soon. Their motto is very clear. “I want these 12 children to reach out and help a hundred like them,” says Ajay. Hope multiplied.

By Sakshi Virmani in Meerut