The Chaos Within - The Year of the Dance

An impromptu ‘dance session’ outside the Deep Griha centre at Tadiwala Road by the DISHA team and members of the community that followed the rally on World AIDS Day.

This will be my last post for 2005.

Deep Griha closes today for the holidays and next week I hope to be immersed in forgetfulness, and float away inside. It is not respite. It is rejuvenation. There is no respite and nor should we, who have chosen to be here, ask for any.

The challenge before us in 2006 is a vision: Transform Tadiwala Road into a model community in the fight against HIV/AIDS. 2006 is DISHA’s ‘Share the Vision’ year. We have to approach a community that has just begun to identify the Red Ribbon. And it is what lies beneath the red ribbon that needs to be brought into focus.

Ignorance festers there. Stigma oozes. And we have to uncover the wound.

An enraged sister-in-law on Monday morning pitched into a young woman who had just lost her husband. Yes, Monday saw another client, Kashinath succumb to TB. He died at home, on Sunday night, as a terrified wife looked on. His children slept through his passing and woke to no father.

“You gave my brother HIV! You killed him!”

She was distraught. She was upset. Blaming her brother’s wife helped her cope with her grief. All these maybe true. But what is also true is that the community heard her rant and rave, and the twin headed monster of Ignorance and Stigma fell greedily upon her words.

What is also true is that a mother Lalita and her two children, Deepali (7) and Avinash (4) have to now contend with the very real possibility of discrimination that is meted out to a family that is tagged as HIV+ in this community.

This is our battleground.

2006 will not be the ‘Vision Realised’ year. We know this.

When will that be? We don’t know.

Susan Raj, our consultant, suggests that to see this vision realised may take a generation.

A generation!?!

Fuck. It is so easy to be overcome by the enormity of the task ahead of us. Do we have the strength to fight for so long? Again, we do not know. But what we do know is that we must begin. We cannot afford to delay any longer and allow the twin headed beast of Ignorance ad Stigma to grow more powerful than it already is.

The Dancing Stars are on the frontline. We stand with them now, and will stand with them tomorrow.

The choice is ours.

The choice also is yours. Too long have those who can and are able been silent. Too long have those with a conscience bludgeoned it into submission with comfort of circumstance. You must join us. You must stand with us. You must dance with us. Yes, dance. If you’ve read this blog in the past, you’d know how important dance is to the DISHA team. In dancing we embrace life. We move to that primeval rhythm that is within us all.

2006 is the year we share the vision. May it also be the year of the dance!