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Freedom song of Imphal?s positive people
Soumitra Ghosh returns to Manipur after 7 years to find that old friends will not live long. But those who live fight on.
I first saw Lilabanta at a roadside restaurant in Imphal seven years ago. I did not know him or his work then. He was wearing a bright blue T-shirt, sitting in a corner with a beautiful woman. She was trying very hard to hold back tears. Every exposed part of her body was covered with beads of sweat. It was abnormal for Imphal in December.
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Lilabanta was talking gently to her. He put his arms around her a few times. They looked like lovers breaking up. A little distance away sat a group of young people, talking animatedly. The two appeared to know them. At a particularly tender moment, when Lilabanta and the woman were cheek-to-cheek and gazing into nothingness, a single tear rolled down her cheek. It was so beautiful, I couldn’t resist raising my camera. I shot six frames. Lilabanta saw me and got up. I tried to hide my camera, but he was faster. In a couple of seconds, he was right in front of me. “Just take out that roll,” he said sharply. I obeyed silently. I did not know Lilabanta or his friends then, but I probably gained their trust at that moment. It was only later that I got to know them — all HIV+ young people, members of a group called MNP+. Lilabanta, Banta to his mates, was president.
MNP+ was founded on September 7, 1997, by five men and women in their 20s, all injecting drug addicts and HIV+. A year later, when membership had doubled to 11, it was registered with the government. It was supposed to be a self-help group of only HIV+ people which did not intend to “deal with” the infection, but to live like family.
Members spent all their time together, inspiring each other to die another day. They hid their identities because often their families couldn’t take the stigma. They offered support to other affected youth, and shelter to HIV+ women, often in the own homes. The beautiful young woman I had seen with Lilabanta had just been asked to leave home by her family after they found out she was HIV+. The sweat I saw on her was the result of a complication arising out of the infection.
I went back to Manipur last week. MNP+ now has over 2,000 members, more than half of them women. It is a full-fledged state-level network for PLWHA (People Living With HIV/AIDS). Like other state networks of positive people, it is affiliated to Indian Network of Positive People (INP+). Their concerns too have expanded. On December 1, when corporates and NGOs worldwide unite to support World AIDS Day, Imphal’s HIV+ people will be worrying much more about a more direct, and ruthless, killer: Hepatitis C.
“I know I am going to die very shortly because I have Hepatitis C. I cannot afford the treatment which costs Rs 4.5 lakh,” Deepak Leimapokpam, Lilabanta’s cousin, said. “All government projects are targeted at HIV/AIDS; not a single one at Hepatitis C. This, despite a staggering 92 per cent of IDUs (injecting drug users) in the state having been co-infected with Hepatitis C.
The ground floor of the three-storey MNP+ office in an Imphal lane was crammed with youngsters watching television or playing carrom. Some were lying on the floor, doing nothing. “Manipur does not have even a minimum opportunity for the youth. This is the main reason behind their becoming drug users,” said Lakshikant Athokpam, project coordinator, Drug Substitution Project.
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“Since you can’t stop drugs, what we do is to substitute heroin and spasmoproxyvon with another drug of the opiate family called Buprenorphine. It has less severe withdrawal symptoms and side effects, and is taken orally, eliminating the chances of infection being transmitted through needle sharing. These youth will go back to earlier habits if we don’t keep them here,” he added.
Officially, there are 24,198 PLWHAs in Manipur — 5,491 girls and women and 319 infants among them.
In addition, there are nearly 47,000 IDUs. 90 per cent of them are suspected to be HIV+ positive; 92 per cent are suspected to have Hepatitis C. “They need to be identified immediately to prevent an increase in numbers,” said Shivananda, the first president of MNP+.
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There were 156 men and women at the MNP+ office when I visited. Most will not live for long. But it seemed they did not care. Many of them were moving around busily, running up and down staircases, banging away at computers keyboards, strumming guitars, distributing leaflets, cooking, cleaning toilets, reading, attending meetings, receiving phone calls…
Looking over them, his sunshine smile firmly in place, was Lilabanta. He was wearing something similar to the blue T-shirt of seven years ago, only several shades down. Next to his right cheek was scrawled a message: “It is not how long we live, that is important, but how well we live, and we live with a vision”.
As I stood before Lilabanta’s photo, one of his mates told me he had passed away on July 22, 2004, at the age of 39. I stared at him, my mind racing. I remembered the time he had invited me to a rock concert in Imphal. The small auditorium was full; the crowd was ecstatic. The decibel levels shook the ground beneath our feet. Angelica, the MNP+ rock band, was playing. Each one of the band members seemed to be celebrating the spirit of life and living. I had asking one of them what her favourite song was. And she had said, “Robbie Williams’ ‘I don’t want to die.'"
Email Soumitra Ghosh:
Soumitra.ghosh@hindustantimes.com
