A day in the life (or something equally cheesy)

Yesterday was a strange day; a meeting in the morning, HIV counselling training and a DMAV session in the afternoon, a goodbye in the evening and and a conversation with a friend and team member that made me think.

The meeting was productive, the training was interesting and the DMAV was wonderful!

We arrived at Solapur Bazaar, in Pune, with the DMAV's new red curtains blowing in the breeze. They certainly made it look more jazzy but they also bring the red lights of amsterdam to mind!
A welcoming committee of excitable young boys were waiting, arranging chairs and stringing banners across the street. Our usual walk through the winding streets took on a pied piper air as the boys danced around behind us and Meera banged her drum with extra vigour. The crowd slowly grew and the team launched into their best performance yet. The audience watched attentively, laughing and clapping in all the right places. People started hanging out of windows and off balconies to see. The street was blocked by our team so cars, bikes and mopeds, instead of turning around, stopped to watch. And then, the acting ended and the questions started. The microphone was passed around the audience, Trisha style, as more and more people raised their hands to ask questions, intelligent questions, about HIV. Young men, old women, a rickshaw driver and an expectant mother, all with queries.

After the questions ended the condom demonstration began. The men boldly climbed into the DMAV in front of everyone - the space we had created felt like a very open forum. There were none of the usual embarrassed faces or supressed sniggers, just genuine interest and support for each other.

As I was packing the DMAV three young men asked for a second condom demonstration. I was so excited. These people really did want to learn and understand. It just felt good.

And then I returned home in time to say goodbye to two fellow volunteers as they set sail (or should I say took flight) for Ethiopia and the next leg of their travels. I did not want them to go. It made me sad. I hate goodbyes.

It reminded me of a conversation I had had that afternoon with my friend and team member. She was explaining a problem to me and then she stopped. She said she had only become really close to a few volunteers and she was still sad they had gone. Then she corrected herself, 'not sad', she said, 'it is more than that. You don't understand, there is no word.' She said I was becoming another one and she didn't want it to happen again. I felt awful, guilty. I knew I was dreading leaving but I suppose I hadn't really thought about it from their perspective. I assumed I was just 'another volunteer', which of course I am, but real attachments and friendships are made between everyone here. There is no such thing as just 'a volunteer'. You are welcomed, and made to feel like a family member. I don't really know what I am trying to say but I do know that I am dreading leaving a little more now. I hope the next two months go really slow.

The Chaos Within - One Day

Two thousand people?

A thousand?

We don’t have an accurate estimate. Yet. But they looked and felt like thousands on MG Road Walking Plaza last Sunday evening. They looked and felt good.

Inox (cinema multiplex) gave us over a thousand too. We ran an event there all Sunday. Street theatre, live music, banners being signed to support PLHIV, live exhibits, games to identify where we stand on condoms and unprotected sex… It looked and felt good.

New volunteers taken by the drive and passion of the Wake Up Pune team (pretty girls included) emerged that day… “How can we join you?” “Let us be a part of this.” “I want to come and work with you.” Random. All very random. Good random… once the chaff of sleazy random was separated.

That very night when candles for those who have fallen were lit some of the movie goers joined us. They joined families that had come for a stroll, couples eating ice cream, men watching the girls. They also joined over 200 people living with HIV.

Did they know we were so close?

Did they know that they were probably that close everyday?

The 200 were the PLHIV we knew, from NGOs and positive networks. How many more stood there that day in silence, in fear?

‘It could be you’ ‘Be responsible’ ‘PLHIV need support NOT discrimination’

Our messages. Give consistent messages. ‘Messaging!’ We have to get the balance right. It’s like any campaign. Capture their imaginations. Sell HIV prevention. Sell support for people living with HIV. Selling is the reality we operate within… a reality that demands this of us if we are to help eyes open. Help eyes see. And minds… minds understand.

The candles burnt stubbornly in the wind. And war cries demanding our right to life grew silent as we remembered those who had passed and vowed that somehow it would end…one day. Somehow it would not be me. Somehow those of us who choose life will have access to life (read antiretroviral therapy, read good nutrition, read love and acceptance).

It was a good day. A good beginning. It lifted us all.

The stubborn candles are a great metaphor. The only problem is that stubborn candles are also extinguished by forces greater than it… him. her.

A stubborn candle was extinguished yesterday. Hemant Pandit.

Hemant was our client. A dancing client. No monthly gathering on the Deep Griha terrace was complete without Hemant in his ill fitting black suit and passion for his wife. He danced with her, serenaded her, loved her. Epic love. Inspirational love. Love that surrounded her and lifted her and made her sit by his side whenever she could at Sahara Aalhad. Love that protected her.

When I saw Hemant on Thursday I knew it was over. His skin was stretched taught over his tall wiry frame. As they cleaned his bed sores I wondered at how this man no longer had buttocks. His diseased skin was thin and frail and looked like kite paper badly glued on to his pelvic bone.

His last words to Maya that day were “Take my wife and mother away, they don’t need to see this.” Words that were forced through severe oral thrush, pus.

I don’t give a fuck about whether I should or should not be writing this. I don’t care that people find death depressing when there are ‘so many good things happening now’… it is the deaths that fuel us, make us fight. Deaths fuel us and paradoxically empties us. Deaths that no one knows about or wants to know about. Candles in the end so easily extinguished.

WHY ARE PEOPLE DYING OF HIV?

IT IS A CHRONIC DISORDER MUCH LIKE DIABETES.

The World Health Organisation said that. Not us in the field... us in Pune. Chronic apathy and ignorance is our reality.

We must change this. And it is changing. Slowly. There is hope. And hope will not dry up. We will fight till we can fight no more. Till we are broken and cannot be mended. But there will always be hope. There will always be someone to stand up until one day we don’t need to rally and scream, but only remember those who fell and give thanks that we, so indiscriminately and cruelly, fall no more.

Hope does not mean that there is no pain now.

Last night as we sat by Hemant’s body we heard his young wife lament at her loss, laugh through her tears at how much he loved her, and grow desperate with the fear of what was to come.

The MEN then moved into the crematorium where Hemant was placed on the bed of metal rollers to be pushed in to fire. There was a delay. I heard her screams. My body went cold. Scared cold. Powerless cold. Someone came scampering through and bits of red glass and what looked like silver rings were hurriedly scattered on to his body as it trundled into the fire.

They had broken her bangles. They had ripped her golden mangal sutra from her neck, and pulled off her silver toe rings.

The trappings of a married woman.

It began when we were seated outside and they came and marked her as a widow with red and saffron coloured powder. She had a yellowed nose and a bloodied forehead as the powder marred her tear strained face.

The rollers came out empty and shuddered to a halt. Crushed marigolds that had somehow escaped the electric pyre scattered onto the floor. He was gone.

Her cries drowned out the machine.

He was no longer there to love her and protect her and make her laugh.

There is often no fucking continuum of care that prepares us for the abuse of our cultures. What happened to her was not about HIV, it was about death. Hemant could have been knocked down by a bus and the same thing would have happened to her.

But Hemant was not knocked down by a bus. He died of HIV and AIDS at 35. He died because he had no access to the levels of care and support that could have protected him from HIV and turned it into a chronic condition rather than fatal.

Another random man died of AIDS in India. He has become a statistic.

To his wife an aching terrifying hole.

To us a dancing client swallowed whole.

I am tired of writing how much we will miss those who pass like some fucking morbid Hallmark card, and you are probably tired of reading it… but we do. We do miss them. And we always will.

The dancing clients remain, and Hemant’s wife is one of them. Hopelessness has taken her and now our challenge is to release her from its cold dead grip. Let us hope that she will one day learn to dance again. Let us hope for her. She can’t. Not today, and maybe not tomorrow. One day.

One day Hemant won’t have to die.

One day the government will take HIV seriously enough to actually do something rather than allow for corruption and misappropriation of the ‘cash-cow’ HIV has become.

One day we will realize that HIV is not the poor man’s ‘scourge’ but a socio-economic reality that threatens to carry us away to a place we don’t want to be.

Ask Swaziland.

Until that one day we cannot rest.

PUNE reveille toi !

Namaste a toutes et tous,


Vous m'accorderez bien un petit article en Francais dans cet univers anglo-saxons.


J'avoue que "Pune reveille toi" sonne moins bien que "Wake up Pune", mais au fond qu'importe car ce que nous avons put vivre en ce dimanche 20 Mai, quelque soit la langue utilise pour le decrire, les mots ne seraient pleinement rendre compte de ce parfum si particulier qui a envahit Inox et MG Road le temps d'une journee.



Ce parfum, d'une alchimie subtile, melait joie, harmonie et solidarite, mais aussi decouverte, reflexion et prise de conscience. Et pour la suite nous l'esperons comprehension, action et engagement!


Nul besoin de rentrer plus dans les details, l'article de Katie le fait parfaitement. Cependant je tenais a vous faire partager la reflexion d'un homme, au milieu de la foule masse sur MG Road, qui, alors que je lui tendais une bougie, me dis avec des yeux remplis d'Amour et de Paix:

"I don't need it, i always have a Light with me"...

On with the Dance!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 20th!

The day began bright and early as we began the search for a dvd player and tv to play hindi HIV clips at the days Wake Up Pune programme. An easy enough task, but to find a dvd player, television and tv and all 3 to work together at 8 am proved to be a fun task. I climbed over mountains of toys for tots boxes, tried to plug 8 different coloured cables into 6 holes and remove the tv from the cultural centre before mandas face turned completely green, all to the the theme tune of the french guy humming indiana jones.

But by 10 am everything was set up at INOX and the day was running well. A kiosk providing information, PLHIV handmade gifts, charity wristbands and quizzes was set up. Three huge banners where laid on the ground to allow people to leave messages and signatures to show their support for the cause. "Unite & Fight against HIV", "Ordinary people, Extraordinary will", "Lets all take precautions for a better tomorrow" "Don't just Do IT (followed by a Nike tick)" and "For all the people who don't wear a condom- Happy Fathers Day!"





The Sahara team brought in the crowds as they performed their street play to a lively audience and Ashtads performance kept the day flowing and the crowds happy. A movie poster competition was set up for the kids to design their own superhero to fight HIV. Condomans appeared along with hundreds of spidermans from the kids who had just come out of their movies.


Later on in the afternoon we distributed quizzes to the movie goers and in my best Indian English I went through the answers to make sure everyone had the correct answers. "There are only FOUR ways!!" Balloons where distributed to the kids and they left happily with their lollies, their parents only slightly confused about the images of condoman appearing on the red heart shaped balloons. From 10 till 4 there was a constant buzz of excitement thanks to the keen team of volunteers (and the free ice cafe mochas from Barrista) and the event was a success.



However the Highlight of the day was definitely the MG road rally. The purpose of the day was to Light Up Pune and thats what we did. Familiar faces from Tadiwala RD and Ramtekedi all congregated at the end of MG road where hundreds of banners in Marathi, Hindi and English where distributed to the crowd. Satyaam volunteers stopped the traffic with "There are only 4 ways" stop signs as we all shouted cheers of "WAKE UP PUNE!" "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!".






As we arrived at the MG road stage the sun was begining to set and many of us where feeling weary. Families sat down around the stage and as the music began candles showing the "disha" ribbon where distributed among the enormous crowd. As everyone joined together for the minutes silence, the point of the day was highlighted by the thousands of shining flames.


After the rememberence there was entertainment from Blue Mist, Indian Idol celebrities and Ashtad and his band. However, the Stars of the show where definitely the Disha kids! The giggling girls where dressed in matching white skirts and bright tops, while the cool boys stood in their fresh new jeans and enormous cool ties.







Their dance was amazing and they all lit up the stage. By the end the entire Disha team where up on the stage Rock and Rolling along with them and their excitement and success definitely shone through leaving behind the message for the day, On With The Dance.

by Katie

The Chaos Within - Let our voices be heard

"Let's light up Pune." We struggled with arriving at this... this slogan? Tag-line? Call to arms.

Global AIDS Action Week begins on the 20th of May, and the Wake Up Pune coalition has answered the call with this event at the Mahatma Gandhi Road Sunday Walking Plaza.

I wonder what he would have thought... what would he have done?

Joined the fight.

It has begun to unsettle me though whenever we use words like 'battle' and 'fight'...

DISHA's logo has Major Tom standing there with a staff, and a very angular looking HIV ribbon mounted on it, it almost looks like a blade, an axe blade, and I wonder if Stevie thought of that, or was it her subconscious at work, or was it really the symbol of the fish she was going for? Major Tom also stands on the spidery writing soapbox - Join the Fight.

Fight what?

HIV and AIDS.

Let's stop HIV and AIDS. Together.

'Stop AIDS Keep the Promise.' That was and is another tag-line. No one was or is quite sure what the promise was... or is. I remember asking the question at a regional conference they held in Pune on kids and HIV, and no one knew.

So do we need to spell it out when we use phrases like 'call to arms' 'join the fight' and the 'battle against HIV and AIDS will be won or lost in India'?

Is the rhetoric going to harm us?

I do know that some PLHIV have looked at Major Tom with concern. Their minds so rightly burdened with the rejection they have faced, saw the connotation of a fight directed at them. Join the fight to make sure PLHIV are rounded up and put away in places like Sahara, or little communities and colonies, like many NGOs and agencies have already done.

PLHIV have special needs. Let's put them all together and make sure they don't get out and upset anyone. Especially the children. What can we do? - Resignation - We have to protect them, and one way of protecting them is putting them in an institution where their interests will be served? Where they will learn to understand how special they are.

Are these kids, even women, and on occasion men, being equipped to re-enter society, or are they learning to accept that they will always live only on its margins?

What is the reality?

No answers, just questions. Sorry. I will try and answer the next question though... it is what drives us at DISHA.

What do we mean by 'join the fight'?

We mean join the fight against the silence and ignorance, against the stigma and discrimination, against a society that refuses to discuss issues of sex and sexuality because they threaten to corrupt minds, a society that will allow arrest warrants to be issued against Hollywood stars that kiss Bollywood stars - it does sound farcical - a society that doesn't really want to know too much about HIV or anything else that disrupts our sense of being, purpose, and the simple things like houses, vehicles, and the latest gadgets.

Am I being too middle-class?

The issues are so complex that to limit them to the middle-classes will be folly. They affect us all, and this is why NGOs and agencies have to now move purposefully outside of their comfort zones - the slums. Those who live in resource limited settings need support, there is little doubt, but when it comes to fundamental issues, and HIV has become that, then we have to realise that HIV will not contain itself like poor sanitation or tinned roofs, it has already passed well within the boundaries of socio-economically deprived communities.

Also, if we return to the issue of Gere and Shetty, and also sex education in Maharashtra, we will find that a lot of what we refer to as society was in fact appalled at the frantic media grabbing antics and at the neo-national conservatists who burned books having been whipped into a rage, only because they didn't really understand why education on sex and sexuality is necessary.

Forget HIV. Think Child Abuse. Remember that over 50% of our kids are abused in India. Is that not a reason to take to the streets?

This brings me back to the point of this blog. Our focus and passion for HIV is only a part of our focus and passion for this city. We have chosen to join the fight against HIV, and am deeply conscious that to win this fight, or battle, or war, we need to win other battles, other fights, and these include sex education in schools and addressing issues of sex abuse and rape - remember the protests against the Indian army in Manipur? They raped a young woman claiming she was an insurgent. They knifed her privates and ended by shooting a bullet through her vagina. Remember? What did we do about that? Did we get out the arrest warrants? Gere kissed Shetty. Media storm. Soldiers (Assam Rifles) brutally rape and murder a poor Manupuri girl. Nothing.

Did we even fucking know?

I didn't... till yesterday when we sat in a very hot and sweaty room at Soul Avenue watching the Women's Film Festival.

The challenges before us are interlinked. (Corporate Social Responsibility at the very least is an acknowledgement of that. Give back to the communities you exploit.) We can never win the battle against HIV in India if we don't fight other battles, and join other fights.

Does poverty underpin the challenges we face? It can. It has. It does. It will... and this stream of conscience rant could continue indefinitely, except for one fact: Words and rhetoric will get us only so far.

We need to be on the streets. We need to let society know that we too are society. We must not allow ourselves to represented by corruption and insidiousness behind closed doors that think they can choose and decide for us.

Let's light up Pune, let's light up whatever corner we live in, and break the silence. Come join us on the 20th of May, Sunday.

Let our voices be heard.