Rakhi (name changed), was just 28 when a medical check-up revealed she was HIV positive. But things weren’t as bad for Rakhi as she thought.
Rakhi (name changed), was just 28 when a medical check-up revealed she was HIV positive. She was shattered though doctors told her it could take several years, maybe more than a decade, for the infection to convert into AIDS. More than the fear of the stigma attached to the disease, what she feared most was having “nobody by my side when I kick the bucket”.
But things weren’t as bad for Rakhi as she thought. She learnt about a matrimonial website for HIV/AIDS patients. Rakhi is now engaged to be married later in the year and though her husband-to-be is HIV positive, the fear of leading a deserted life no longer dogs her.
It’s been little over a year since www.positivesaathi.com, the first of its kind website in the country, was launched. The website has seen an increase in the number of applicants from less than 50 at the time of launch to nearly a thousand — 750 men and 120 women — from across the country. While nearly 50% of these belong to cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Lucknow, Jalgaon, Ludhiana and Kolhapur. The site also has applicants from Brazil, Netherlands, Dubai, UK and USA.
It also prompted other matrimonial websites to have dedicated sections for the HIV infected people who wish to find their life partners.
Anil Valiv, who launched the website single-handedly, is a government employee, posted as the deputy RTO in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district.
Valiv said, “There are two kinds of people who work for the HIV/AIDS patients — the infected and the affected. I belong to the latter. I was saddened to see the social isolation some of my HIV+ friends faced. When an affected friend told me he did not wish to get married because he would pass on the infection, the idea to start a
matrimonial website for HIV infected individuals occurred to me.”
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