The AIDS-affected couple face discrimination at every step
They have been living in Verk, a locality on the outskirts of Amritsar, for years.
But this 36-year-old man and his wife became virtual outcasts in their own locality four years ago, after they were both diagnosed with AIDS.
The woman, 32, has been completely blind for the last one year, after she suffered a strong reaction to anti-retroviral therapy drugs that are used to fight the disease. A simple surgery can improve her condition, but she has been turned away by almost every hospital she has visited.
No one wants to operate on an AIDS patient.
Their four-year-old son, who is not HIV positive, was refused admission in two schools after the authorities got to know about his parent's medical status.
The woman found out she had AIDS while she was pregnant. She had contracted the disease through her husband, a former drug addict, who got it from an infected needle while using drugs intravenously.
"I never did anything wrong, but God has punished me. Addiction has ruined us," said the woman.
These are just two of the 32,000 AIDS patients currently in Punjab, according to estimates; the state had around 25,000 cases last year.
Most doctors believe that the rising numbers of AIDS cases is a result of the state's troubled history of drug addiction.
11,000 such cases are registered at the anti-retroviral therapy or ART centre at a government hospital in Amritsar, the most affected district. Last year, only 1,200 such cases were registered.
Something else that is worrying the doctors is the large number of HIV and AIDS related cases that are being detected in prisons.
"Many of them are the result of intravenous drug use. Nearly 50 per cent of the patients claimed they were not drug users but started using in jail," says Dr Jyoti Sakuja from the ART centre.
The Punjab government claims that it is on a war-footing to rid the state of drugs and also fight the rising number of AIDS cases resulting from rampant drug use.
"The government wants to make the state AIDS-free," says Punjab Health Minister Suraj Jyani.
But NGOs working on the ground say these efforts may just be too little, and may have come too late.
"What is the point of doing this now? What about those who have already contracted these diseases? Many times, hospitals turn away patients with all sorts of excuses," says Dr Vaneet Sareen of the Akhil Bharatiya Human Rights Welfare Association.
Neither the government's efforts nor its promises mean much for the AIDS-affected couple in Verk. The only shred of hope they have centres around their four-year-old son.
Someday, they believe, their son will no longer have to share the discrimination and humiliation faced by them. Someday, they hope, he will be able to live a life of dignity.