MOTHER COURAGE: Shanti’s story is to be telecast across India later this week

Positivity is something Shanti seems to swear by. And nothing, it seems, can hold her back from the mission that she has chosen. “I have given people the courage to live against all odds,” is the way she puts it, chatting over coffee in a Delhi hotel a few days ago. “And after the response I have been able to elicit, I know there’s no looking back.”

Shanti is HIV positive. A farmer’s daughter who grew up in a traditional, rural home, the 32-year-old feisty resident of Pambur village of Karnataka also leads a campaign for the rights of people living with AIDS. Today, she runs an active non-governmental organisation that focuses on HIV/AIDS.

Shanti was in Delhi as an ambassador of Haath Se Haath Milaa, a TV programme on HIV/Aids awareness produced by BBC World Service Trust in association with the National Aids Control Organisation and Doordarshan. The weekly programme features young people across India who have taken up the fight against HIV as a vocation in their lives.

Ten years ago, Shanti wouldn’t have known that she was going to publicly fight discriminatory practices that HIV positive people and their families face. Growing up in Udipi, Shanti’s childhood was idyllic. “We grew jasmine flowers for a living,” she says. Shanti recalls having enjoyed her childhood thoroughly, until she was married at 20 to Albert, a local boy who had been working in a Mumbai hotel as a cook for a few years.

Albert shifted base from Mumbai soon after marriage, to return to his village and take charge of the grocery shop his family owned. All went well for a while, and the couple soon decided to have a child. It was midway through her pregnancy that fate took its toll on Shanti. During a routine health check up, Albert tested positive for HIV.

The episode took time to sink in. But amid the trauma, the couple decided to go ahead with Shanti’s pregnancy. Shanti delivered a normal child four months later, and christened him Austin. The couple was to have a second child, Nitin, five years later. Shanti herself tested positive during her second pregnancy.

Those were difficult years. Two years ago, Albert ? by then nearly blind ? fell down a staircase and injured himself grievously. He never recovered from the accident, and left Shanti alone with her two sons and the dreaded virus.

“Albert was a brave man and shielded me from public humiliation when he was alive,” says Shanti. “But his death exposed me completely.” First, the grocery shop was taken away from her. Then, Shanti’s in-laws rejected her ?and it wasn’t long before her community deserted her as well.

The body blow, however, came from the school where Shanti’s sons studied. “Nitin cut his forehead while playing one day and the school refused to treat him,” Shanti recalls. “The authorities went even further, asking me to produce blood test reports of both children. My sons would be expelled from school if found HIV positive, they told me.”

Shanti’s initial reaction was that of compliance ? she rushed to get her sons tested. “Thankfully, both tests returned negative results. I was so relieved,” says the mother. It meant that her sons could continue going to school. But the incident, in many ways, made Shanti realise how apathetic society could be towards HIV positive people and their families.

“Look at it this way,” she argues. “Even if my sons were HIV positive, they couldn’t pass on the virus to other children simply by attending classes with them. So why was the school being so unreasonable with my children?”

Thus began a new chapter in Shanti’s life ? that of a campaign aimed at giving HIV positive people their due. To begin with, she refused to furnish the test reports of her sons to the school authorities. When pressured by the school, she went to the media with the issue, which was played up till it reached the local ‘netas’. Timely political intervention followed, and the school soon came around, pleading ignorance, and assured Shanti that her sons could keep attending school.

During the course of her fight against the school authorities, Shanti had come in touch with volunteers from a Bangalore-based organisation, the Karnataka Network of Positive People. “They asked me to join training courses in medicine, capacity building and awareness in Bangalore, so that I could go back to work with HIV positive people in my own district,” she says.

After spending a few months in the Karnataka capital, Shanti returned to her district to form the Deepa Jyothi Network of Positive People about a year ago. The organisation currently works with HIV positive people across Udipi district. “There’s a lot of work to be done here before other districts can be focused on,” she says.

But Shanti feels her hard work is paying off. “Even a couple of years ago, people in our villages thought HIV could spread through perspiration and mosquito bites,” she says. “But the attitude has changed over time. These days, people are far less prejudiced.”

Then, while she was engrossed in her work a few months ago, Shanti heard about a foreign news channel coming to the village to feature her in one of their programmes. Though her initial reaction was that of apprehension, Shanti found herself getting along with the BBC crew, which had arrived to collect footage on Shanti for three episodes of Haath Se Haath Milaa. “They lived and ate with us and by the end of the shoot we were like a family,” she smiles.

And of course, she got to meet Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty who was there as one of the celebrities who gave the TV production some star appeal. “I first thought she would only come and show off,” laughs Shanti. But she did much more than that, and her presence really got the village folk going, Shanti says.

For Shanti, meeting Shilpa Shetty was a special experience. “I really admire her,” she admits with a smile. “She played a great part in Phir Milenge,' she says, referring to the Bollywood production where Shetty plays an ad woman who tests positive for HIV.

Shanti’s story is slated to be beamed across India on Thursday, and she says her neighbours have already begun to pester her with phone calls, wanting to know everything from the programme’s time slot to whether they might catch a glimpse of themselves in the feature. And Shanti is not the only one struggling to answer such queries. Stanzin Dawa, a resident of Ladakh who was featured in earlier episodes, says he went through a similar experience back in his district.

“But such a response is always welcome,” says Dawa, a 29-year-old student who has been working in the field since 1996. “HIV can’t be tackled in isolation, and you need the masses on your side to achieve your goal. I am delighted that our stories have succeeded in generating much-needed public interest.” When Shanti’s story finally goes on air, the protagonist will probably be taking a seat in front of the TV set along with several people who ? ironically ? had nothing but consternation to spare for her a few years ago. Call it the power of joining hands.