Tuberculosis does not announce itself. It hides — in the corners of crowded homes, in the chests of men too proud to ask for help. So we go looking for it. Our TB outreach programme started after one of our volunteers, on a borewell visit, met a young father coughing blood under a banyan tree.

He had been refused work for three months. His wife had stopped sending the children to him. He thought he was dying. He almost was. We took him to the district hospital, paid for the diagnostics, and put him on the six-month DOTS course. He is back at work today. His youngest daughter is in our scholarship programme.

Since then, we have built a quiet but determined TB support arm. We pay for transport to hospitals, monthly nutrition kits, and follow-up visits where many patients silently slip through the public-health system. Our volunteers know each patient by name.

The shame around TB in our villages is heavier than the disease itself. Families hide their patients. Patients stop their medication. The cycle restarts. We work hard at unstitching that shame — through community meetings, through visits without judgment, through the simple act of sitting and drinking tea with a man whose neighbours have stopped coming over.

We don't celebrate TB cures with banners. We celebrate them with a knock on the door, six months later, and a quiet handshake. Then we walk to the next house.