Bhopal (UCAN): At 66, Brunda Mohanty vividly remembers the painful situation when he left home as a 14-year-old boy. His mother had died early in his childhood and people in his ancestral village of Nirakarpur, in Puri district of India’s Odisha state, loved him so much.
 
But that was until some patches appeared on his body. “Soon my loved ones began to treat me as an outcast,” he said in a soft, forgiving voice. Slowly, he realised he had contracted Hansen’s Disease, or leprosy, a disease Indians consider a curse.