Who will look after my child?

It was a persistent cough that just wouldn’t go that made Arvind, my husband, suspect that he had tuberculosis. A test not only confirmed this but gave him further bad news — he tested positive for HIV. Doctors estimated that he had been HIV positive for a while — at least two years.

And in those two years, he had had an arranged marriage with me and we were even blessed with a baby boy. He was a well-built 29-year-old building contractor from Hyderabad. I never suspected that something could be wrong with his health.

Of course I knew about Aids, but I never thought it would affect my life. After all, I was educated, came from a good family, and my parents had checked the antecedents of the boy and his family before arranging the marriage.

But fate had other plans. Arvind told me about it as soon as he found out — a few days before my 25th birthday last year. He said that although he had been in a monogamous relationship since marriage, there had been women in his past.

Initially, when I found out, I blamed him and even left his house. To make matters worse, two tests revealed that I was HIV positive. Shocked beyond belief, my first thought was about my one-year-old baby.

I did not care about myself but kept praying that the baby should be spared. And my prayers were answered. We took several counselling sessions together and later informed our parents. While my in-laws were supportive, my parents refused to talk to him.

In retrospect, had I known about his past, I would have been cautious. But it never occurred to me to ask him to take an HIV test or any kind of test. I should have — it would have saved my life. But now I constantly worry about my child. Who will look after her after we pass away?

(This is a first-person account of an HIV-positive homemaker. She spoke to Deepa Suryanarayan.)