According to Goa State AIDS Control Society, 20 persons died due to HIV-AIDS in the past 10 months and seven cases have been detected with Bardez having the highest number of patients living with the disease. During January to October in 2025, the State of Goa had a total of 237 HIV positive registered cases out of which 70 % are men and the rest 30 % are women. Out of these 223 became positive due to sexual transmission. In two cases the parents transferred it to their children, and one case was found to have got the infection due to infected syringe and needles.
These are just figures, not stories. Each of these nameless numbers has a story of its own. And it’s different from the others. Some come from families, others are homeless. Disowned by their own, some are left to fight the disease on their own. Few are lucky to survive and thrive.
A girl who does not know who her parents were or from where she belonged grows up alone in some hostel, and encounters with something unexpected, unwanted and unimagined. With loneliness as her only company, she lived on to be a phoenix – a legendary immortal bird renowned for its ability to cyclically regenerate by rising from its own ashes.
Meera’s story symbolises rebirth, renewal and transformation. Just like the phoenix. “I didn’t grow up in a home — I grew up in a hostel. Not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. Rules woke me up. Loneliness puts me to sleep. I studied under dim lights, washed my own clothes, worked odd jobs just to buy notebooks. I cried quietly at night — but I never stopped dreaming,” she recalls.
People laughed at her. Some said she wouldn’t make it. But Meera kept going. “At 12, my whole world flipped. A sister at the hostel told me I had HIV. Suddenly, the stares changed. The whispers got louder. Even in a room full of girls, I felt alone. But I refused to break,” she asserts.
When Meera attended her first Human Touch Foundation camp, something shifted. She met others like her. She learned about the treatment. She learned that HIV didn’t mean ‘end’. It meant ‘fight harder’.
“So I fought. I took my medicine. I studied through sickness. I stood tall even when people tried to shrink me. I chose hope even when my heart was tired,” Meera shares. And here’s where she won. The battle was long, lonely and tiring. But she did not give up. She continued with a fighter’s spirit. Never knowing where life would take her, but not losing hope. She kept dreaming of sunshine.
“By the time I walked out of the hostel, I wasn’t the weak girl they pitied — I was a survivor they never saw coming. Today, I’m 25. I work full time at a foster care home. I’m completing my XII Std. I live alone, independently, and proudly. I don’t have parents — but I’ve built my own family with my colleagues and peers. With them, I laugh. With them, I dream,” states Meera who has grown into a young, smiling girl.
Life is never easy, but it’s not too hard either. “My life didn’t start easy. But it made me strong. Hostel life didn’t break me. It built me. When you have no one, you have your own self. I was my own light. I walked alone, but shadows of fear, anger, depression or frustration could never scare me. Brushing them aside, I paved my own path, and kept walking because I focussed on that tiny ray of light at the end of the tunnel. I knew it would lead to a brighter future,” believed Meera.
She has become a lighthouse for others now. Sharing her own story, she asks those like her to shed their deepest fears. “And for anyone who feels small or subdued right now — refuse to give up, and you will rise higher than anyone ever imagined,” her words come from within, from her own experience. Many such Meeras may be out there waiting for appreciation, for affection and respect. HIV-AIDs should not draw a line between them and the rest of the society.
