Sheba met a young woman last week. Young in years. Terribly old in experience.
Sunita - as we will call her - was married off early. Nothing unusual in that. Things fell apart. She and her husband divorced. She was home again.
Her parents married her off again. Her new husband had a very sick mother. Sunita also got sick. She was caring for her mother-in-law. It got so bad that Sunita could not look after her mother-in-law and went to stay with her parents to recuperate. In the mean time she found out that she was HIV positive.
After recovering her health some-what, Sunita went back to her husband. Shortly afterwards her mother-in-law died. She told her husband that she was HIV positive and urged him to get tested. He refused. He also told her that she was no longer wanted. He had married her only to look after his mother. He sent her home. Shamed. Soiled goods.
Sunita's parents are livid with her. They accuse her of being a prostitute. She is back with them.
A few weeks ago, Sunita started going to a prayer meeting in the slum she lives in. The lady who runs the meeting put her in touch with a couple who have been reaching out to people with HIV in their area. They brought Sunita to meet Sheba.
Life is really rotten for Sunita. But she still breathes. She still wants to live. She still is precious.
Behind the glamour and glitz of money-fast-bucks-success driven Mumbai - are thousands of Sunitas. Lives crumpled and crushed in the cruelty of the get-ahead-use-people-as-trash culture that we see around us.
We are grateful for simple people who are reaching out in love to Sunita and others like her. They do not have magic solutions, but they care. They are loving and praying with her. They are seeking some form of reconciliation with her parents. They are holding out hope - to people whose services are no longer required.
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