When a Poor Woman Adopts an HIV+ Baby

By Susan Philip Little Subha, 18 months old, is special.

She's HIV positive, and she's adopted - technically, in foster care.

Her adoptive mother, Sooriya, lives in a tiny, one-room tenement in Thiruvalluvar Nagar, a slum in north Chennai.

Sooriya has two school-going sons, a husband who's a casual labourer, and nothing else - other than a big heart.

It all started when Sooriya met S Kandasamy, a social worker with the Community Health and Education Society (CHES), a Chennai-based NGO.

Kandasamy's brief is to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS, dispel the associated myths, and arrange for aid to the afflicted.

He has made himself a part of the society to which he has been assigned - the slum dwellers here share their food, their sorrows and their dreams with him.

Kandasamy had motivated a group of women, Sooriya too, to visit a shelter for HIV/AIDS-affected children.

The day the visit materialised, life changed for Sooriya.

She'd been longing for a daughter, and had briefly toyed with the idea of adopting a baby.

There were about 40 children in the shelter.

Says Sooriya, "They crowded around each of us, touching us, clinging to us.

The five or six children who flocked around me stayed me with them till I left.

They longed so much for love." Sooriya's vague ideas crystalised.

She realised she wanted an HIV+ little girl, to bring up as her own daughter.

When she told her husband, Gajendran, he was not unduly upset, merely saying it was her call.

She then implored Kandasamy and CHES to give her a child from the shelter.

But CHES, a responsible NGO, had Sooriya thoroughly vetted before deciding to do so.

The NGO's representatives observed her and assessed her ability to bring up an HIV+ child.

Then Sooriya received training over eight months - she learned about the implications of HIV/AIDS, and how to look after those affected by it.

Finally, one day, baby Subha was placed in Sooriya's arms.

The eight-month-old infant looked like a two-month-old.

She had no hair, her head was covered with oozing sores, and her emaciated limbs flopped uselessly.

But Sooriya was unfazed.

She proudly brought the baby home.

Her neighbours were derisive, but Sooriya took no notice.

"When she came to me, Subha could only lie on her back.

She could not even turn over.

I massaged her limbs, gave her hot baths and gradually, she improved," says Sooriya.

Today, about a year later, Subha has a thick head of hair, the sores have vanished and her eyes are bright and inquisitive.

Her limbs have that glowing roundness of a healthy baby.

It hasn't been an easy transition.

Beginning with chicken pox, Subha has had bouts of chest infection, high fever and diarrhoea.

"On one occasion," Sooriya remembers, "I had to rush her to the doctor a little after midnight because her temperature was so high".

The doctors were informed of Subha's HIV positive status, as CHES had instructed Sooriya to do.

Illness is a part of growing up, says Sooriya philosophically.

"I don't think my daughter is any more prone to sickness than other children." The sceptical slum dwellers have seen how Subha's family interacts with her.

The two boys, Surender and Narender, gambol about with their little sister, cuddling and kissing her.

Gajendran loves her and puts himself out for her as he does for no one else.

And as for Sooriya, she can't bear to be parted from Subha.

Graudally, Sooriya's neighbours saw that there was no cause to fear the spread of HIV/AIDS by casual contact.

Now, Subha toddles around the slum and walks into any home she fancies - she's welcomed everywhere.

And when the toddler accompanies her mother to pick up her brothers from school, the teachers vie with each other to give her a hug.

Life has changed for Sooriya in other ways too.

"I've been telling everyone in this slum of the need for cleanliness and hygiene," says Kandasamy.

And the message has sunk in.

Sooriya is neat and well groomed, and she keeps her little home spotlessly clean.

Post-training, she's quick to help those who are victims of AIDS or have lost their loved ones to it.

Nandini, for instance, lost both her parents to AIDS and lives with her grandmother in the same slum.

She's a frequent visitor at Sooriya's house.

Recently, when another slum dweller was diagnosed with AIDS, it was Sooriya who rushed to care for him.

"She's become quite an authority," smiles Kandasamy.

Of course, there are those who snipe and suggest that Sooriya is making capital out of Subha.

They feel she must be getting funds from all sorts of sources, a charge Sooriya vehemently denies.

"I had no idea my action would result in all this publicity," she says.

Sooriya has made news, though, and her story has touched a chord in many hearts.

She displays a wad of letters from people she's never heard of - students and even prisoners - praising her for what she's done.

CHES offered her some monetary support, but she refused, says Kandasamy.

Her stand is that Subha is her daughter, and it's up to her to bring her up.

Commendable though it may be, it may be difficult to maintain.

The fact is that Sooriya depends almost entirely on the bounty of her brother - he owns the house she stays in, rent-free, and helps her financially.

Sooriya brushes aside questions on how she'll cope with future expenses.

As for the publicity, she hopes it will motivate more people, especially the educated and affluent, to follow her lead.

In her slum, this is already working.

Motcha Mary, who has two grown-up sons, was inspired by Sooriya's action.

So, she brought home Nitya, one-and-a-half and HIV+, and what a difference she has made in Mary's life! Her alcoholic husband has fallen under the thrall of the little girl, and is making sincere efforts to stay sober.

And as for her working sons, they dote on their little sister.

At CHES itself, a member of the staff has taken in a seven-year-old HIV+ child.

In 1974, Dr P Manorama, a paediatric gastroenterologist, had started CHES in response to the neglect of HIV+ children.

A few years ago, says Dr Manorama, it was unimaginable that HIV+ children would be adopted; today, it is a reality.

CHES' other real success is reflected through reuniting HIV+ people with their families.

As many as 65 HIV+ inmates of the CHES home, both children and young women, have gone back to their homes.

This was a gradual process, through which the relatives were made to understand and observe that HIV/AIDS doesn't spread by communal living.

As for Sooriya, she is prepared to face whatever the future may hold.

And she can't resist talking indulgently about Subha.

"If I raise my voice to her father, she glares at me and scolds me in her baby language.

And if I yell at her when she's naughty, she just hugs me tight and gives me a kiss.

She knows that'll make me forgive her, clever girl that she is." --WFS