{"id":40,"date":"2011-03-05T14:14:23","date_gmt":"2011-03-05T13:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.new.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/?p=40"},"modified":"2011-03-10T14:14:55","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T13:14:55","slug":"maasaanam%e2%80%99s-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/archives\/40","title":{"rendered":"Maasaanam\u2019s Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.new.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/massam.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-42\" title=\"massam\" src=\"http:\/\/www.new.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/massam.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/massam.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/massam-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>One day a father from a nearby village brought his 10-year old son to St.Luke\u2019s Leprosarium.  The child looked every inch a leper!  So far advanced was the disease.  He was a textbook picture of a lepromatous leprosy \u2013 the infectious type of the disease.  The disease must have gone on for years.<\/p>\n<p>The doctor was so overcome with indignation over the father\u2019s callousness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat kind of father are you?\u201d he screamed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are an irresponsible father.  Your village is so close to our Hospital.  You could have brought him much earlier\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat can I do?\u201d cried the father.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a daughter of marriageable age.  Suppose I come to your leprosy hospital for my son\u2019s treatment and my neighbours spot us inside a leprosy hospital, they will put two and two together, and conclude that my son is a leper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSoon I will have to searching for a groom for my daughter.  Then the neighbours will warn the parents of the potential groom against matrimonial alliance with my family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTherefore I decided to defer the visit to your leprosy hospital till my daughter is married off.  Then came the difficult search for the money towards dowry.  By the time I could raise the money for the dowry, three years rolled by.  Within this period, my son\u2019s disease advanced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You see, leprosy is not just a physical disease but one with social stigma and emotional overtones.  Some are afraid of losing the job.<\/p>\n<p>The married ones are afraid of losing their spouse.<\/p>\n<p>Most often the wife sticks to the leprosy-afflicted husband thro\u2019 thick and thin. Alas! When a wife is afflicted by leprosy, the husband deserts her immediately.<\/p>\n<p>Coming back to the story.<\/p>\n<p>Thank God!  Though the boy\u2019s leprosy was advanced, it was not too late.  The boy was treated with MDT (Multi-Drug Therapy) the modern scientific powerful combination of drugs.    Within two years, he was fully cured \u2013 so thoroughly cured that hardly any one could suspect that he was once a \u2018leper\u2019.<br \/>\nMaasaanam is today a happily married man with three children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day a father from a nearby village brought his 10-year old son to St.Luke\u2019s Leprosarium. The child looked every inch a leper! So far advanced was the disease. He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neemtreetrust.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}