Many people have heard of leprosy… from back in biblical times. It doesn’t get talked about a lot today, so to our surprise, it’s still around and is affecting real people in their real lives. Dharmu is one example of many who are impacted by leprosy. He lives in a leper colony in West Bengal in Eastern India. He’s 48 years old and has had leprosy since he was five. He lost both of his parents at a really young age, and was raised by his aunt, a chronic leper herself. Dharmu’s odds didn’t look too promising—an orphan and a leper—two things that qualified him as an outcast in society. He and his aunt didn’t have much money at all; his aunt never encouraged him to pursue any treatment for his leprosy or to go to school, so instead he joined her, sitting along the streets, begging for some extra money.
Fast forward to the present-day, and Dharmu is still begging for money. But this isn’t the lifestyle he wants to live. He doesn’t enjoy begging as his source of income, but it’s what he knew and learned from his aunt. But Dharmu’s a fighter. He’s never viewed his life as a lost battle, but as one to keep fighting—until his very last breath. He doesn’t let up, doesn’t back down, and does it all with a positive attitude.
Now he’s got a family of his own—Alo, his wife, and their two daughters: an eighth grader and a newlywed. Dharmu has the only source of income for his family, which he gets from begging. He’ll travel all over to beg… you can’t earn a lot if you stay in the same spot—you’ll become too familiar to the people passing by. He’s got a family to provide for, so he travels all around to bring in the most money possible for them. But this isn’t at a low cost. He’s gone so much, which makes him miss out on time with his family, missing those sweet life moments: the birthdays, the first steps, or the calm nights simply sitting and eating together as a family.
Dharmu never got regular treatments for his leprosy because the medicine cost too much, and it took a lot of time to travel to the hospitals for treatment. So he was continuing in the cycle of life he had always known… life as a leper and a beggar. An outcast.
But now he gets treatment for his leprosy at a medical clinic for leprosy funded by The Hope Venture and organized by our partner Murty. He gets this treatment free of charge to him, which includes checkups and medicine. The doctors at the center also noticed that he has high blood pressure and a vitamin deficiency while they were caring for his leprosy, so he is receiving holistic care by getting treated for those things too.
Dharmu knows he will never live a “normal” life… his leprosy has gone untreated for long enough that it has affected his nerves and he has lost part of his left foot. Yet he’s still optimistic about the treatment he’s receiving now, and he’s optimistic about the future. He wants to develop his own livestock farming business, right out of his own home! He dreams of a pain-free life, and wants to grow old with his grandchildren. He hasn’t lost hope, he presses forward for a life beyond the diagnosis of his medical condition.
