Once in a Lifetime: Part 2

The Office


A rented second story space of a residential home, located in the heart of Dindigul town, houses the PAASAM Care Center office. An unassuming location containing a tiny front office which barely fits the two desks from which the director and his immediate assistants conduct the daily business of running the office, a larger hall whose focal point is the two metal beds which patients occupy on a daily basis as they receive the free glucose drips provided by the organization, and the walls lined with shelves and shelves of iron and vitamin tonics, meticulously labeled bottles of pills for every ache and ailment imaginable, and hefty bags of rice and nutrition powder are the only evidence of the amazing work being done every day in what would otherwise appear to be just another quiet, family neighborhood.

The office is where I first met seven of the most amazing women I have ever had the privilege of knowing: the staff of PAASAM Care Center. All HIV positive widows ranging in age from their early 20s to mid 30s, the PAASAM staff welcomed me like a younger sister from the very first moment I met them. Extremely affectionate and generous in nature, my fondest memories of them to date are of the bonding we would do every afternoon over lunch, a raucous occasion conducted on any available floor space in the cramped office. Food is an integral component of expressing love in the Indian culture, a custom I am well-versed in from experiences with my own family, but the family I gained at PAASAM took this symbolism to a whole new level for me. At every meal that I shared with these generous women, everyone would always set aside a portion of their own meager lunchboxes to be shared with the group, even before they had even taken a whiff of, let alone a bite of, their own food. Whatever little there was to go around was always offered to the other first and in their own resonating words “Food is the one thing we wouldn’t deny even our greatest enemy.”

If Fr. Arul Samy is the creative head of PAASAM, the staff is the backbone which ensures the organization functions like clock-work. The staff’s first and foremost duty is to be a leader by example for the HIV/AIDS community that PAASAM services. The staff at PAASAM are the first fruits of the organization’s goal to empower people living with HIV/AIDS to accept their health condition, come out with confidence and express that they are HIV positive, and to develop the conviction that HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence, but rather, that a high quality of life is still possible after an HIV positive diagnosis. Living in a male-dominated societal order, where a woman’s life after her husband’s demise is expected to end in seclusion in the home in a state of perpetual mourning, symbolized by the stipulations that she wear only white saris and forgo the use of jewelry, flowers in her hair, and even the bindi, the quintessential birth-right of every Indian woman, the women of PAASAM have summoned up the courage to make the statement that their lives did not end with the passing of their husbands or with the discovery that their husbands had given them this debilitating disease. Risking societal accusations of being loose women who are dishonoring the memories of their dead husbands, the PAASAM staff have found the courage to leave the home and enter the workforce in order to support their families. They have refused to let the joint sorrows of the loss of their life partners and their infection with the HIV virus dampen their spirits or their resolve to fight the disease. They take diligent care of their bodies, reporting without fail for their bi-annual CD4 count tests, which track the progression of the infection, apportioning a substantial portion of their meager earnings towards purchasing and preparing nutritious foods to preserve their health, and taking their prescribed medications religiously. Most commendably, however, the women at PAASAM have refused to surrender themselves to the centuries old stigma of widowhood levied upon them by their Indian culture. Defiantly dressed in colorful saris, bindis on their foreheads and flowers in their hair, these dauntless women refused to be marginalized by a society which often hurls violent abuse at revolutionaries like them who protest the injustices levied against them.

The women who work at PAASAM are amazing in still other ways. Ranging in educational level from eighth grade dropouts to the sole woman who attended college and even went on to complete a masters degree in economics, the PAASAM women have learned to become self-sufficient and are teaching these skills to the clients that frequent the organization. Each of the staff heads up a Self-Help Group where members work together to accumulate savings which are then returned to the members themselves as internal revolving loans. Over the course of three years, 7 Self-Help Groups with a total membership of 83 HIV positive women have managed to save Rs. 81,768 ($1, 744) and open bank accounts at South Indian Bank. With this development, the bank manager of South Indian Bank has promised to give loans to the HIV positive women, a major godsend to a population dependent on meager day labor wages to make ends meet. In a similar vein, the Self-Help Groups have also formed a federation of 11 office-bearing members culled from each of the individual Self-Help Groups. The duties of the federation are to petition government officials for various assistances to HIV infected and affected individuals, including old age and widow pensions, scholarships, and income generation vehicles such as free sewing machines. With no background in accounting and a minimal education, the staff at PAASAM and the HIV positive women whom they mentor manage to maintain the accounts of their respective Self-Help Groups, draft formal applications for loans, and negotiate services from bank and government officials.