Please Hug Me, I'm Just Like You

chillibreeze writer — Preeti Shenoy

Manavya is one of the few non-government organizations in India that offers residential care and rehabilitation to HIV/AIDS affected destitute/orphaned children and women.

It’s mission is to enable children and women living with HIV to get a fair fighting chance to survive and overcome odds, to ensure their rights to food, clothing, health, shelter and education without social discrimination.

Easier said than done.

I know, because I spent an afternoon of my weekend there with about 60 children, all of them HIV positive and many with full blown AIDS and some with just a few days to live.

It was a soul stirring, heart wrenching experience. It moved me and humbled me so completely. I still haven’t recovered. I don’t think even a lifetime is enough.

I went there as a volunteer, as part of a team, from my husband’s company (which encourages employees to devote parts of their weekend in some kind of community service). There weren’t many people who were willing to go and be with the children. Maybe it's because even though we all know that touching someone with AIDS cannot spread it, we still have that mental fear and loathing. (Remember the movie Philadelphia?)

Since I work with children (I do workshops on thinking), and since they really needed people, I said I’d go. I went with two of my husband’s colleagues, whom I was meeting for the first time. We were all a bit nervous. This was the first time that any of us were doing anything like this. We had heard that these kids were totally abandoned by society and nobody visited them much. Therefore, when someone did, they would be hugging you and there would be a lot of physical displays of affection. Both of them had never worked with kids. In comparison, I felt a little better. It was a 40 minute drive. We got to talking. One of them tried to convince me to put my children into one of the expensive boarding schools (he had been to one) I heard him out. Patiently. And did not offer my views.

When I actually saw the 60 odd children, the first thing that struck me was that I had been nervous for no reason. They were just like a bunch of any other kids that I had handled. Then I saw their purple mouths. Most of them had a kind of tincture rubbed around their mouths (I later learnt that it was to prevent infections) I taught them a little dance and a funny song. I talked to them, hugged them, listened to them and made them laugh.

After that, it was time for Art. They were to make pictures—anything that they felt like drawing. Many drew happy pictures. There were very few who knew their full names (all these are abandoned children of commercial sex workers). The ones who knew their full names wrote them with so much pride. Usually, most children relate to me and open up to me. But there was one child to whom I could not get through, no matter how hard I tried. I tried to make him laugh. He did not even smile. His picture was a scribble of just one color. Black.

Later, we distributed gifts and chocolates. What struck me was that there was no grabbing or asking or pushing. The children were so polite. They took it and said “thank you”. One could almost sense a calm acceptance in them, like the limited number of days many of them had. Two of them said that they wanted an extra one, not for themselves, but for their friends who were too sick to come for the session. I went inside and saw them. They were tucked into their beds. Beside them were the sweets and the gifts that we had earlier distributed. These children were really used to looking out for one another and looking after each other.

The afternoon turned into dusk and we bade our goodbyes. How trivial all our problems seemed compared to the ones these children faced everyday.

We came back in taciturn silence.
There was nothing to talk about.

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—About our writer:

Preeti says, "I run my own workshops for children, on developing thinking skills and have worked with different schools. I enjoy being around children & more importantly, children enjoy being around me! I am also into fitness (Used to play basketball at national level) and blogging. I paint too and have many original works of art to my credit. I love books and I enjoy traveling, reading, writing and learning about different cultures."

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