Struggling To Find Solace: Sanjay’s Story

July 15, 2010 10:58 am

Taken from a 2008 Newsletter

Sanjay reached Mumbai at the age of 15. His journey to fend on his own in life began when he was just 10. He was troubled to see his father having to struggle to make a living and to meet the demands of his children so he decided to take up a job away from home.

Sanjay’s first travels took him to a village in Ambala where he found work in a village household. Later he took off to a village bordering Himachal, where someone offered him a job as a rickshaw driver. But this was not enough to ward off hunger. He thought Delhi may provide him better job opportunities but that didn’t happen. At Delhi he slipped back into the same rickshaw driving job.

And that’s when the problems started. He got mixed up with a group of boys and got pulled into ‘outline’. The group were into everything, alcohol, ganja, nitrovates and brown. But a rift took place among them which turned out costly, ending in a murder. This forced Sanjay to flee Delhi.

Mumbai offered him instant jobs with caterers. However it didn’t take much time for him to turn to drugs too. This time he graduated to injecting. About seven years ago he got to know about Sankalp through a staff who was an ex user himself. At Sankalp, he got inducted to substitution therapy and after tapering it to low level, went through the detox camp programme and was clean. At least for some time.

As part of the recovery process, he decided to undergo HIV testing, which turned out to be positive. He relapsed, but with the help of Sankalp stood up again and was staff at Sankalp for one and half years. This is when he thought that it was time he visited his folks back home.

His family welcomed him most warmly and even started marriage plans for him. He lied to them that he was already married and had a family in Mumbai. He didn’t want to disclose his health status; neither did he want to cheat his proposed wife.

He returned to Mumbai, but was not at ease. This dragged him to relapse. It continued for some time until he has once again sought Sankalp’s help and that of NA.

However he has also begun to realize that though he can count on Sankalp’s services any time, he needs to learn on how he can stand on his own. For the past three months he is back at OST, pulling on till he finds the solace that he strives for…