Hard to help

I remember when I first met him. His face was like a cloud. What goes on inside, behind the two white eyes and the inscrutable expression?

His thoughts were also hard to follow. He has HIV. He had come for help. The help that he wanted was a job. A place to stay.

He had grown up on the streets.

We will call him Harish (not his real name of course).

What his real story is only his Maker knows.

But this is what I gathered.

Harish has family. But they are terribly estranged. He has HIV. They know. They don’t want him.

Harish was working as a porter at the Churchgate railway station. Helping to load fish that came from the docks onto the trains. 7 days a week. And the additional duties too. When an accident took place, it was he and his fellow ‘hamals’ who were called to remove the dead bodies – sometimes even to pick up the pieces.

According to the pastor who sent Harish, the govt. doctor had told Harish to stop working at this job because the constant exposure to water meant he kept falling ill.

The pastor also told us that Harish was so broken by his rejection by his family that he was suicidal.

Among the stories Harish told was how he had been a petty thief and chain-snatcher before he had a change in his life. He also talked about his rejection and the hope that he had about joining his family who had gone to a village – but how bitter the parting was.

In the swirling stories he reminisced about growing up on the street and being helped by a school bus on wheels. He remembered the milk and biscuits he got from them.

Harish looked healthy. He did not seem to have any apparent weakness or sickness at this point. He said that he had not eaten much recently because he was unemployed. He said that he did not want to go back to his old ways.

We did not have a job for Harish. We talked with the pastor. We suggested another agency whose office was near where Harish was staying.

Later we found that Harish was staying in a totally different area to what we had understood him to say.

We also found out that Harish had been helped before in a residential programme – but that he did not stay put.

We had asked him to go to the other agency with a local church person. He went alone. The agency said they would try and get him a job. Everything seemed rosy.

I got a call from the pastor who had initially referred to us some weeks later. He was frustrated with the agency, saying they had promised and had not delivered. We had a long – and not entirely pleasant conversation about Harish and what should be done for him. The pastor suggested another HIV-focussed social service organisation. I didn’t think there was much hope for them looking after Harish, but I said “why not”.

This was all a number of months ago.

A fortnight ago I attended a meeting at this organization.

I was served tea by a young man dressed in a uniform with the name of the organization embroidered on it. He greeted me enthusiastically. I did not recognize him immediately – thinking he was perhaps a local trainee whom I had met sometime ago.

It was Harish.

“I wanted to come to meet you – and also meet pastor x” (he mentioned the pastor who had initially referred Harish to us).

I was thrilled to see Harish finally settled.

A few days later I called up the pastor and thanked him for what he had done for Harish.

Sadly, I just got this SMS on my mobile from the pastor. It was from the head of the organization Harish was with:

“Harish has left from here in very bad spirit again. I don’t think I will take him back again because he is always threatening to leave if things such as food and other things don’t match up to his expectations. Tried to help but he is spoiling the atmosphere here. All of us here in the organization and church are concerned for him and have tried our hardest…”

It’s hard to help.

There are a lot of romantic ideas that people have about social work. “Ooh, how noble” say some “it must be so satisfying to know that you are doing worthwhile work.” “People must be so grateful for your help” say others.

Its more often that we are faced with trying to help challenging people like Harish. The combined efforts of the pastor, us and at least two other excellent organizations have really worked to help Harish start life anew.

But the choices remain with Harish. And many like him.

Say a prayer for Harish will you? And say a prayer for the pastor, the other two organizations, and us (and who knows how many others) who are trying to help.

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Photo courtesy Christa Eicher