Kausalya was 19 years old when she was married to a truck driver. Her husband was HIV positive and he married her inspite of knowing this. Within a few weeks of marriage he was tested positive for AIDS and seven months later he died, leaving her HIV positive. Imagine a 19 year old uneducated women , based in a conservative small southern town of Namakkal, widowed and with a disease which has so much social stigma associated with it. This was in 1995 when the awareness of AIDS was almost non-existent. I wonder if it is possible to be in a deeper dump than this.

Archana Raghuram is impressed with Kausalya’s courage..