cynoscion’s blog

Lepers at the Hard Rock Cafe

Outside, actually. I was so relieved to see them. I had wondered where India’s lepers had taken themselves off to. Years ago there were lepers everywhere you looked, square-faced, waving their poor little melted looking stumps around, begging for alms.Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is contagious, although it takes an awful lot of exposure to contract it, like living in a leper colony for months or years. And it’s very treatable, and cheap to treat as well. The WHO has offered free treatment to lepers since 1995, according to their website. But like so many of the diseases that we in the west assume belong to another time, it’s a disease of poverty, as are polio, elephantiasis, rickets, and this sort of thing. You used to see all of these daily in India.I remember an article I read in The Times of India in 1986 about a new invention, sort of like a wheelchair, but cheap to make, and possible to power with the arms. This was called the Jaipur Chair and the article said it would be given away to thousands of needy people in the upcoming years. I have to admit I didn’t think it would happen. But it seemed to.Gone are most of the people moving about like beasts on all fours from rickets or polio, gone the multiple amputees rolling along the pavement or hopping along on bits of old tyre. And as for the incredibly gruesome, possibly manufactured (by cripple makerssomething I’ve heard about but never seen,) deformities such as the razor sharp broken backs, and oddly amputated arms and legs.well, these are not so common any more. Even in Varanasi, compared to 20 years ago, there are not many of these people around, at least that I saw.My question is: What happened to them? The lepers in particular confounded me. Years ago I was in Kolkata, at the Kalighat temple, and immersed in lepers, in every stage of the disease, and ever since I have looked for lepers everywhere and it’s amazing where you see them. There was even one in Santa Barbara years ago, a woman. She didn’t have extreme deformities, but there is just an unmistakable look. And I understand there is plenty of leprosy in some of the slums along the US/Mexican border.So now we have people with useless legs happily coiled under them as they tool through traffic in their Jaipur Chairs, instead of having to walk on all fours through the gutter, like beasts. I did not see a single person with elephantiasis the entire trip. I can only assume and hope that some concerted effort was made to deal with this, but I just don’t understand the dearth of lepers.Even if you treated all the lepers, and why not since it costs pennies a day, and even if you eradicated it, which India hasn’t, according to their own reports, what about the ones who are already deformed from it? Leprosy eats away at the nerves, causing a loss of feeling in the extremeties. Eventually, most sufferers will hurt themselves and not know; burning their hand on a cooking pot for example. Or not noticing rat bites on the feet at night. None of us will take care of a wound if it doesn’t hurt, that’s human nature I think. And so it’s the same with a leper; all the more so since anyone who has contracted leprosy and can’t afford treatment probably also can’t afford the luxury to get away from the rats, or wrap their hands, or buy good shoes.Where did all these lepers go? I am sure they haven’t all died, for new people are still diagnosed every year, and so where are they? I looked for them everywhere and finally, in Varanasi, I saw a couple, but it wasn’t until Bangalore, (now Bengaluru,) that I actually saw groups of them in the street.Leper colonies still exist, due to the fear and revulsion societies feel for sufferers of this disease, and the mistaken idea that leprosy is easily communicable and untreatable. And of course, it freaks people out to see it. The very first person I interacted with in India, over 20 years ago, was a leper at the Lucknow train stationshe tugged on my arm, and beseeched me for alms. I turned to look at her and nearly jumped out of my skin. I knew what it was, what she had, immediately. There is just no mistaking it.Oh our world.For some disturbing leprosy images, click here.and Wikipedia info
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