Pains of septuagenarian Laxmi: Poverty, HIV-positive son and daughter-in-law

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT 

Rukum West, Sept 2 : Laxmi Sunar of Bhandarikanda, Musikot Municipality-6, of Rukum West has only one son and daughter-in-law. Both of them are suffering from HIV/AIDS. Sun, who has endured 70 years of her life in poverty, pain, suffering, and hatred, now has neither food to eat nor sufficient support to live.

Sugar has a house set up with bamboo straw and a thatched roof, which was built with the help of villagers, at Bhandarikanda, a village near the district headquarters.

After the continuous rain, the straw was washed away, they sleep on one side by tapping the leaking water in the bucket given by the neighbor. There is neither a proper bed to sleep on, nor clothes to cover.

They have experienced sleeping on cold ground in the winter and wet rain. There is no food in the house. The hearth in the corner does not burn regularly. "I don't even have a dish to show," said Laxmi, moving the same dish for cooking and eating to the side.

She does not have a house where she can stand with her head held high and sit with her legs spread out. She was married at a tender age and had to be jailed in India for marrying a Dalit. Laxmi said, "The maternal home, ‘Maiti’ has always cursed me for marrying a Dalit man," said Laxmi added that since then she has not been in contact with them. 

Laxmi’s husband worked as a mason.  But he died of kidney failure when he was 45. The great hope of life was the birth of a son. She returned to Nepal with her son Suresh. 

For six years after returning to the village, the mother and son could not live on their property. It was expected that the husband would have a share in ancestral property. But they didn't get the land of the ancestral property too.

After returning from India, even though she stayed in the village, her son Suresh had to move here and there to earn for the household expenses. 

Laxmi‘s life was stuck after her son, who went to earn money, suffered from a chronic illness. Suresh was found HIV-positive when he was 22 years old.

Suresh is now 40 years old. He is married to 20-year-old Kali Kumari Bogati, who is also infected with HIV. Both of them are taking antiretroviral therapy (ART). Suresh and his wife, who have to take care of their mother in their old age, are forced to be taken care of by their mother. 

Laxmi's family is supported by the social security allowance given by the government to senior citizens. Suresh has driving skills. He has experience of working as a cook in a hotel. “I want to do something in agriculture. But I did not get the opportunity in lack of money,” said Suresh. Kali Kumari also collects rice and pulses by working in the village.

Neighbors have been helping Laxmi's family as much as possible. Nirmala Rasaili, a member of the executive committee of Musikot Municipality, who is also a local, said that everyone has helped them so that they do not starve. 

According to Rasaili, the villagers have built a small hut on a land of 800 square meters for them.  Houses are being built through the government's Janata Awas program by various agencies. They will get a new house after completing general management work, she added.