Archana — another Delhi-based woman— got to know of her positive status by accident. “I went to donate blood and thought I should get it checked before donating. I was then told that I am positive. At that time I did not have money to get tests done. I lost my job as a teacher in the coming months,” she adds.

Women like Archana and Vinita started picking up pieces of their lives after coming together under the Positive Women’s Network (PWN). On Monday, the organisation hosted a get-together for families in the Capital living with HIV to mark World AIDS Day.

According to WHO, approximately 2.5 million people in the country were living with HIV in 2006. Worldwide, approximately 33.2 million people have HIV. An estimated 2.5 million are newly infected with the virus every year.

Vinita recollects how she was told to check her HIV status after her husband tested positive. Soon, her daughter also tested positive. “When we went to the counsellor, she simply told us that both of us had tested positive and would die soon. She revealed the news to us as if it was a death sentence. We lost the first two to three years just battling depression,” adds Vinita.

“For the first few years I, and all around me, kept waiting me to die. Then I decided that I could not wait anymore. I decided to chang— for the sake of my child,” she says.

The mother of two then decided to study further. “Knowledge was the only way of arming myself against AIDS. I did a two-year course in yoga, naturopathy and diet,” said Vinita. She now knows and works to inform others that having AIDS is not a death sentence anymore.

Archana says it is time people started treating HIV-AIDS like diabetes or any other heart problem “There are several diseases people live with, like cancer, diabetes and cholesterol. HIV-AIDS is like that. Only awareness can arm us to fight AIDS,” she adds.