Stay by my steel ward bedThe last part of a poem Seth wrote for a newly released compilation of writing on the stories of people with HIV in India called: AIDS Sutra
And hold me where I lie
Love me when I am dead
And do not let me die.
- Vikram Seth
The poem brings to mind the first pictures I saw of people in our country who had AIDS. A stark set of black and white photos published in the (now defunct) Illustrated Weekly of India showing two gaunt wide-eyed women in an empty ward of a government hospital in Bombay. The year was 1986. The fear was palpable.
There are so many more stories to be told... not only the poignant and tragic - but the comical and mundane as well. Who will tell them - and more importantly - who will listen?
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