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Scoop-Wallah - Life on a Delhi Daily
Scoop-Wallah - Life on a Delhi Daily is being re-published as part of Summersdale Publisher’s classic travel series on 2nd February 2009 with a new forward by the author.
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Extract - Part 3
Sindoor and Sex Continued...
Families with AIDS sufferers are experiencing rampant ostracism. They are boycotted, thrown out of their jobs – the sort of treatment meted out to criminals. What does that say about this country? All we hear the whole time is how modern we are becoming, joining the computer age, the space age, whatever. But look at this, we are creating a horrific new kind of caste system because of our basic ignorance.’
Her use of ‘untouchable’ was a surprise. Here was a woman fighting the prejudices of society, yet she still deferred to the order of the caste system when it came to finding a simile for what the public viewed as the detritus of humanity.
‘People I have spoken to were shocked by what you wrote, you know, and all you were doing was giving them the official figures and some of the hazards of having a blinkered attitude towards the virus. I wish you had been much more aggressive. You see it is easier for you because you are a Westerner, it does not leave such a bitter taste for people. They can still take it in but keep it at one step removed. Can you imagine the panic if we released the unofficial figures on the virus, if we told some of the real stories and exposed some of the VIPs and Bollywood people who are HIV positive? I am glad that you wrote the piece but we need that kind of stuff in every paper, every day, until people just cannot ignore it.
‘This is one of the times when I really wish we could take the example of the West, you know, give the whole thing a profile led by stars and politicians to show that nobody is immune. You see no one is really brave enough to be the first one to admit that they have AIDS because that means all the dirt in their past will come out at the same time.’
Two days later there was a report in The Indian Express about a young man called Tarun (not his real name, you understand). He had been admitted to hospital
He was suffering from jaundice among other infections.
He was admitted to the casualty ward, where he had to
share a bed with another patient for a day. Scared that
Tarun might be deprived of the little attention that he
was getting, the family did not inform the doctors of the
infection. But on the advice of an AIDS counsellor, the
family told the doctors of the situation. Shockingly
Tarun was immediately taken off the bed and put on the
floor, where he lay for a week without any appropriate
medical care.
‘The attitude changed so drastically, that is what was
so humiliating,’ said a member of Tarun’s family. ‘They
wrote the words HIV positive on the case chart in big
bold letters. But more painful was the contempt in their
eyes, it was just too painful.’
After a week, the next Saturday, the doctors said that
Tarun would have to be shifted to AIIMS (All India
Institute of Medical Science).
‘There the staff simply told us to come in on Monday.
He died on Sunday, at home,’ said a member of Tarun’s
family.
On World AIDS Day in December 1997, while Tarun’s family grieved, the Minister of Health gave the massaged figure for HIV cases in India – 70,000 as against five million. Nowhere in the announcement was there any mention of AIDS being spread by homosexual contact.
While the AIDS workers raged at the veil of silence, residents of the archetypal stomping grounds of the great emergent Indian middle class frowned and moved on, popping down the road to catch the latest Hollywood offering, MIB – Men in Black, at war with a huge man-eating cockroach from outer space. It seemed a good enough distraction from the fear and ignorance hovering just outside their homes.
At Jodhpur Apartments, Ram Kumar was itching for a fight. I was his victim. He complained loudly to Yashwant. I was accused of ordering tea whensoever I pleased. Even Dhan Singh, who had burnt his hand making rotis and so was not in the best of moods, decided to have a gripe. Tea once a day did not seem so demanding. Ram Kumar was shouting. Yashwant stood, one eyebrow raised.
‘Has she mistreated you?’ Yashwant asked.
Ram Kumar was silent.
‘I wish she would. When will she learn to take my advice? I may have to buy her a whip to beat you.’
Ram Kumar smiled. I fled from the room.
Depressed by AIDS and tea I went to join the crowd at Men in Black.
The gentleman who sat next to me in the rustling, nattering gloom of the cinema first ploughed his way through popcorn, patties and cola. Then he looked bored. The show had only just
Begun. He squirmed in his seat before lifting one side of his ample posterior. I held my breath. What emerged was a cellular phone. The gentleman was ‘becoming bore’ as he informed his friend on the phone. Anyway, the great big bug on the screen had reminded him to call about getting the number for pest control that they had talked about over pakoras and whisky just the night before.
MIB, Men in Black, and vast exploding cockroaches, for the MIB – the Moderately Incomed Blasé. AIDS day was just another day for the Delhiites, not just another day for Tarun’s family. The AIDS workers banged their drum and people walked on by, pressing their cellular phones to their ears. But there was also something else in the air, something much more palatable.
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