NUKSHINARO : HIV POSITIVE AND RARING TO GO

She comes across as just another quintessential girl next-door – warm, friendly and inviting. She could be mistaken for a College going girl with her petite frame and bubbly smile adding to her spunky persona. She is well qualified, highly informed, intelligent and walking the journey of life like any other. Nukshinaro, 28 years old, is HIV positive and this is just the beginning of the story.
When I first met her a week ago during an IEC skill-building workshop at Guwahati, she had this familiar aura and I wondered if I had met her somewhere earlier. And when she candidly asked me whether I had seen her in the documentary ‘Candles of Tuensang’, I was left clueless for a while. This kind of a guileless pose can come only from a person who does not mince words in putting things across. I asked her what she was doing in ‘Candles of Tuensang’ and she replied that she was seen giving her life testimony. Then it struck me and how.
I vividly remember the screening of the documentary at Durbar hall, Raj Bhavan, Kohima two years ago. HIV/AIDS was something about which I had read a lot about but still to get familiar with the reality check of this chronic manageable disease prevailing in our society. ‘Candle of Tuensang’ was an eye opener for the fact that it poignantly portrayed the HIV/AIDS scenario and the stigma attached in our social set-up, especially in interior areas. I remember the impact it left in all the audience.
How did she feel when her positive status first came to light? Fear, frustration, despair, anger? Nukshinaro says she felt only the sense of responsibility at that hopeless moment, to ignore the supposedly dark cloud looming over her and despite being singed and pulled apart, she knew she had to pick up all the lost threads and become whole again. That was in May 2005.
After declaring her status on World AIDS Day that particular year, Nukshinaro attended a PLHA (People Living with HIV/AIDS) fellowship and found her calling. She refused to succumb to the grim despair that other PLHAs were going through. What about social stigma and discrimination? With all the support from her family (after initial hiccups) and friends, especially her siblings, Nukshinaro says she is not bothered by any. And she has enough reasons to say so.
Nukshinaro considers herself as one of the very few fortunate PLHAs with a strong emotional support system for which she is very grateful. And this is the motive why she wants to contribute her bit for PLHAs, Presently working as PLHA Coordinator she wants the society to do away with hypocrisy and accept PLHAs as part of the society, to make the society aware that HIV/AIDS is not something to be looked upon with disdain. She wants to be the voice of the PLHAs living life confidently and further motivate them to lead emotionally stronger lives, to be able to stand up and spread consciousness among the people and to carve out the message of constructive livelihood. The task ahead is colossal but she is confident of facing the challenges with hope, perseverance and heart.
I tell her that once, just once, surely she must have woken up at night and pinched herself thinking where the hell she is heading to and maybe even shed few secret tears… With a pregnant smile she tells me a story about a sixty plus woman in the West who has been living healthily for the past 20 years with HIV and still hale and hearty. That is a real food for thought. Presently Nukshinaro is on Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) and life cannot get any better than this.
My association with her has been brief as half-way through the workshop she had to leave for Delhi to attend another Conference. I could visualize the tapestry of dreams she had woven around her unsinkable soul. Meeting her was a gift. And truly, she does not have a list of ‘100 things to do before I die’.