Deep Griha Blog

Trip to Thailand

2009-11-17T01:06:00.000-08:00

I take this opportunity to thank each one of you immensely for making it possible for us to take the 8 young people, who were refused visas for UK to participate in the Youth Exchange, to Thailand. We had promised to take them to UK but since they could not get the visas for UK, as an alternative we decided to take them abroad to a nearby country where getting visas would not be a problem. With the total amount contributed by the Grey Lodge Settlement of Scotland, the Friends of Deep Griha UK and from a special friend of DGS we were able to take the group of 8 youth, one male leader ( Team Leader at DGS – Avinash Chakranarayan) and myself as the leader for the girls group to Thailand for 5 nights.

We were fortunate to get a package deal within the total amount received for this trip, which covered air travel, internal transport in Thailand from airport to all the tourist places and back to the airport, stay in 3 star hotels for 5 nights, all three meals and entry tickets for all the tourist places. I even managed to give small amount as pocket money to the 8 youth.

All the participants came to Deep Griha’s Cultural Centre on the evening of 19th Sept. 2009. We left for Mumbai airport at 5:30 AM on 20th of Sept.2009. For all the youth in the group this travel to Mumbai was also the first time! I was touched to notice their excitement when our minibus was going through tunnels on the way to Mumbai. After the ordeal of the security check at the airport, checking the baggage and go through the immigration check we took our seats in the airplane. Except myself, for everyone this was the first air travel. They all were excited & scared. Four hours after the take off, we reached the Bangkok Airport at 7 PM, local time. We were met at the Swarnabhumi Airport by the travel agent and were driven to Pattaya . This is a town by the beach. We were booked at the Golden Beach Hotel. Dinner was waiting for us when we arrived and we went to bed soon after the dinner.

Next morning, i.e. on the 21st Sept. at 7 o’clock we were driven to the beach, where a motor boat was waiting for us. We had a boat ride to a nearby island where there were arrangements for each one of us to have a para-sailing experience! The place was buzzing with other tourists. Para-sailing was quite an experience! I too had my first and last experience of para-sailing….. little scary to begin with but once you are up in the air, it was fun. After each one had finished para-sailing we had another motor boat ride to the Coral island. On the way to the island, through the glass bottom of the boat we could clearly see a wide range of corals and fishes. It was brilliant. Then we spent few hours at the beach and the youth enjoyed playing in the water. Needless to say this was their first time playing in sea water. After lunch we all went back to the hotel. In the evening we went to see a cultural programme at Alcazar. There was dancing, singing, small plays. The stage backdrops, the music, lights etc was very entertaining. All the beautiful girls on the stage were supposed to be “Lady boys” as our guide informed us! After the show we went to a mall just to have a look at it. Youth were thrilled to see variety of things available in the mall, the interiors, the decorations and prices of things. They were mentally prepared before we went in, that we were just going in to see the mall and not to purchase anything. Then we went back to the hotel. Everyone had had a lovely time.

On 22nd morning at 8 AM we left for Bangkok. After three hours of drive in an air-conditioned van, we checked into the Howard Square Hotel in Bangkok. On this first day in Bangkok, we visited different Buddha Temples and the factory of precious stones and watched jewellery making.
On 23rd morning we were taken for a safari. We watched many wild animals and had fun time at the dolphin show, the sea lions’ show, the music band played by monkeys etc. etc. There was a boat ride through a make believe forest, with artificial animals around with sound effects. This was another enjoyable visit. After lunch we went to shopping malls. Some of it was in small road side stalls where things were cheap and one had to bargain. The young people enjoyed this part and were happy to purchase some souvenirs or gifts for dear ones back home or for themselves.
On 24th morning we went to the amusement park called the Dream Land which was fun. The landscaping on this Dream land is beautiful and colourful with flowers, fountains & plants. There were various roller coaster rides, water rides, imaginary travel through space in a speedy open train through pitch dark space with very effective sounds and one could see stars, there was a ghost house, a giant house, a fairyland, toy cars and boat for individual rides and there was a snow mountain too where we had to enter with boots and jackets supplied at the entrance and there were snow games one could enjoy. We spent almost the whole day in this Dreamland. On the way back to the hotel, again we stopped at some reasonably priced shopping places.

On 25th morning we checked out of the hotel but left our luggage at the hotel and we were driven to the Floating market. This is set in a river and you actually sit in a boat and shop around for articles either on other boats or on the bank of the river. Various shops are lined on the banks and after bargaining we could purchase some souvenirs and gift articles to bring home. It was a unique way of shopping which everyone enjoyed. On the way back to the hotel we visited the Government Art and Craft Centre where we could see some artisans at work. After lunch we had to leave for the airport to leave for Mumbai.
The whole trip was very enjoyable and was certainly a once in a life time of experience for each one, even myself. Everyone kept good health, there were no accidents of any kind, the travel agents had planned everything accurately and timely. Everyone came back home with great satisfaction.

On behalf of these youngsters, I would like to thank all of you who made this trip possible.

Dr. Neela Onawale, Director, Deep Griha Society

DISHA Community Awareness Session, a volunteers perspective

2009-11-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

Today I was lucky enough to accompany some of the DISHA ladies into the community to conduct an awareness session about HIV in a client’s home. The client, a woman named Maharinda, is HIV+, along with her husband and two children. It was explained to me that she was first diagnosed she was very unhappy, in denial about her condition and unwilling to speak to anybody from DISHA who tried to reach out to her. I found this description difficult to connect to the smiling woman who I met today, who was so enthusiastic about the work that DISHA do that she had invited her female friends and neighbours into her home to participate in the awareness session. We all squeezed into Maharinda’s house, some of us sat on the bed and some on the floor, and listened intently as the DISHA ladies explained the causes of HIV and how you can protect yourself from the disease. It was easy to see how interested everybody was; their attention remained focused on the speakers until the end.

For me, the afternoon highlighted what makes DISHA so effective. They are proactive about awareness, not inviting people to come to them but going out into the community, into people’s homes, to spread their message. As members of the community themselves, the DISHA staff are in a perfect position to build relationships of trust – something that was evident today when they were invited into somebody’s home to talk about what is still a very taboo subject.

Kate Evans, volunteer, Deep Griha Society

Ladies in red...

2009-09-18T04:11:00.000-07:00

I was kindly asked to go along with the DISHA team to a Truckers event today where their aim is to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS within the trucker community. When we reached the destination, I was quite apprehensive about getting out of the van, particularly as it was quite a male dominated environment. However my fears quickly disappeared when the DISHA team keenly jumped out and started setting up the sound system and getting their leaflets together. Within minutes the team were surrounding by a small group of men who were intrigued by the ladies in red. Then they started. They got into a circle and starting singing passionately about HIV/AIDS and the importance of wearing a condom. More and more men were interested in what was happening and going on. The ladies then went onto performing their street play.

The audience listened intensely to the team. Once the performance was over, Santosh, a member of the DISHA team gave a speech about the importance of being safe followed by a condom demonstration. I was amazed to see men listening so carefully to what he was saying. They even went as far as to hold condoms and participate. Santosh’s great manner and public speaking skills really shone as men began to ask questions about HIV and wanted to learn more. Sahara, another NGO, were providing further information about HIV and had organised testing which received a very positive response.

Taking the time to talk to some of the staff from Sahara and DISHA after the event was insightful and getting their perspective on HIV/AIDS was eye opening. The work that they do is selfless and stimulating. The audience which they perform to are fascinated and inquisitive. No wonder the testing result have gone up since DISHA started. Its hard not to feel moved by their work and brevity.

- Roshni Mehta, volunteer, Deep Griha Society

The Chaos Within - 'Just Maybe' and 'Why Care?'

2007-08-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

On the 19th of August begins the Asia Pacific conference on HIV and AIDS in Colombo.

Wake Up Pune will be represented by a poster presentation: 'Can grassroots NGOs collaborate on a citywide awareness campaign? Challenges of Wake Up Pune, India.'

The Wake Up Pune campaign has had moderate success. It is difficult to gauge the success only by numbers - although the number of people reached is important - and the baseline survey conducted last December/January will allow for us to sit back and plan how we move ahead.

Why has it taken so long for us to analyse this data?

We have not been able to identify the manpower required to enter and collate the data. This may sound lame. And it is. The concerns of the day often lead to simple procedures being sidelined or pushed back, and the dependence on volunteers (local and international) to sit in front of a computer and enter data (mind numbing) is not ideal.

Its even boring to write about. Already we are challenged. Priorities.

Campaigns, rallies, sessions in corporates and schools, rock shows, these events excite us and bring out our creativity.

And in a resource limited setting like ours we struggle to ensure that a simple procedure like entering data is completed. The analysis is the interesting part... this will challenge us and drive us and push us towards other forms of creativity as we come together and plan and implement programmes and activities.

Baseline data helps though... What is the situation on the ground? How much do people know? Do they know how to protect themselves? What are their attitudes towards people living with HIV?

Basic, very basic, and all else is assumption, arguably even the data will lead to more assumptions because the representative sample is well under 10,000.

Why such a small sample for such a large campaign?

Lack of resources, manpower, interviewers... interest.

HIV is so highly publicised, even by us, and sensationalised, that for many its just another issue: poverty, corruption, child sexual abuse, cancer... why care so much about HIV? Its here, it now appears endemic amongst certain people, so fingers are pointed, heads will shake, tongues will be clicked in sadness (often genuine), stigma will continue and the fear of discrimination will lead more people (even if its not the certain people everyone associates HIV with) into the shadows of denial, carelessness, and stifled suffering.

Why care?

This is our greatest challenge.

Why care?

The 'shoulds' and 'oughts' and 'musts' have fallen of deaf hairy ears for decades. What will change with HIV? Its just another issue for activists to bang on about, bleeding hearts to cry about, NGO workers to scrape a living about, philanthropists to feel good about, corrupt officials to make money about, scientists to do research about... and people living with HIV to struggle with. Every day for the rest of their (apparently shortened) lives.

Defeatist? Yes, we feel defeated, sure.

When a healthy client commits suicide, we feel defeated.
When corruption rears its ugly head, and funds line pockets and wallets of people like us in the field, we feel defeated.
When a young wife pleads with us to save her husband, but we know he cannot be saved, we feel defeated.

At least, I do. For that moment. The moments recently have been many.

But, fuck it. There is no retreat. And while we can't force people to care, we are surrounded by people who do. Naive, simple, idiotic caring people, because at the end of the day that is what we are called. The cynicism we use to protect ourselves, the anger, the sarcasm, the gentleness, the laughter, the dancing, the beers, the singing, the music, the table tennis, the arguments, the madness... we all have our ways, helps us.

And maybe, just maybe, if the caring around has infected us and sustained us, and those with us, then just maybe, it will infect those people who ask the question: why care?

It is this 'just maybe' that makes us get up every morning. Its not really hope, its just... just maybe. In a field that is as complex as HIV and AIDS in India, with social, cultural, economic, religious, medical, political, environmental (yes, you read correctly)... with every facet of our lives affected, the 'just maybe' is crucial. It is as crucial to our existence as the question 'why care' is to those who ask it, and use it, understandably, to live their lives in peace, with a conscience that does not then question back.

There is nothing special about what we do, and it is important to remember this. There is also nothing that is not special about those who ask 'why care?'

If you don't believe me, watch CNN.

A Number That Matters...

2007-08-02T03:33:00.000-07:00

5.7 Million, 3 Million, 90, 28, 1…

Which of these numbers is the most shocking?

They are all numbers that are very significant to us.
5.7 Million is the 2006 estimate by UNAIDS regarding the suspected number of current HIV cases in India.
3 Million is a revised estimate by a different organization released to great publicity in the last month or so for India.
90 was the number of clients we have in our Tadiwala Rd. DISHA program; “was”, because on Tuesday it fell to 89.
28 is the number of clients we have in our Ramtekadi DISHA program.
1 is the number of DISHA clients who died on Tuesday.
I would have a hard time believing that his family cared at all for any of the other numbers.

Numbers are sexy and trendy, they rise and they fall, they changed hourly, daily, and yearly. Numbers get funding. They don’t properly tell the story of an epidemic however. If an epidemic is defined by numbers, or embodied by photographs, it is experienced only first hand. You don’t experience an epidemic reading a newspaper article or seeing a photograph. In fact, despite being in India for a year and involved in DISHA for nearly half that time, I can’t really say that I ever felt the individual and personal impact of an epidemic until last Tuesday. I’d been to Sahara and seen clients die there. But at Sahara a client is generally surrounded only by caring staff members and other ailing clients, not their families, not in a domestic setting, at the end of a lane in Tadiwala Rd.

Whether or not all the grief witnessed at the post-mortem ceremony on Tuesday was real or simply dictated by custom; it aroused the senses of the eyes, ears, and nose and caused prickles on the skin. Family members pounded the bed and sometimes the body itself, wailing about their grief at losing a husband, a brother, a son, or a friend. Some held his head in their hands, others drew away and asked our care-workers why they had not wrapped the body in plastic, or covered the mouth, lest the virus escape and infect all those present in the light, misty, monsoonal rain that scarcely dampened those assembled to pay their respects(?).

To those that lose a mother, daughter, brother, or uncle to this epidemic, I’m sure that the numbers above 1 do not matter. To the care workers here, it seems also that one is the number that truly matters. Each client gets the respect and care that they would want themselves. This is articulated particularly fluently by our HIV positive care-workers who take this thought quite literally. This total care towards single clients is also restoring in them a sense of dignity and social existence that i was reported in a newspaper last year that India leads the world in AIDS deaths is not a disputed number.

We try to say that HIV is a virus you can live with, and not one that you need to die from, yet here, in India, is that true?

How do you die from HIV? Do you literally wither away in the most painful way imaginable due to wasting disease, do you die from dehydration due to a long bought of bloody diahhrea, do you kill yourself, does society kill you?

When you wait until it is too late to seek help for HIV because you are worried of the stigma of your family and greater society do your AIDS related infections kill you or did society?

Care-workers don’t think twice of working with HIV positive clients, they know the facts related to transmission and they know the importance of what they do. Yet, despite this knowledge they do put themselves at slightly greater risk of infection by being around potentially infected blood. They do this to prolong their clients lives. What happens when the client no longer wants to live?

On Tuesday I carried a client in and out of several clients from a rickshaw to a bed and transferred him between vehicles. He couldn’t speak to say how badly everything hurt, but when a 30 year old man weighs less than a sack of flour, you know it is bad. His eyes rolled back in his head everytime I lifted him, and I knew that his pain was excruciating whenever I touched him. Did he want us to do this?

To get him jabbed with an IV and continue on with whatever pain was to come? Should I be asking myself such questions? Or, should we just try to preserve and prolong their lives without regard for clients’ possible wishes?

When faced with such a situation, all the education and thinking in the world doesn’t enter your head, it becomes an example of primeval humanity. The type that gave rise to communal civilizations, and a type that is often forgotten today. You just see the person who needs help, you don’t see the illness, you don’t see anything, you just act on impulse to help and preserve life. But with this illness, in India, today, can life be more miserable than death…am I a bad person for saying that, whether or not it is true? These thoughts don’t enter your head whether you help, but days after a client commits suicide, they do.

The Chaos Within - Jesus Saves

2007-07-28T03:06:00.000-07:00

There are blogs that have come and gone in these last few months... thoughts that have pushed themselves forward with such force that my fingers have itched to write, to empty myself... and then there is what requires to be done on the ground: awareness sessions, meetings, visits, deaths, client gatherings, planning events, dancing... sitting down to empty thoughts onto a computer screen don't seem so important.

These past few months have been marked by so much that I don't even know where to begin, and I am also conscious that we have ex-volunteers and other friends of the project and Deep Griha that follow our progress via the blog, so... no more excuses. We will write more often, and although someone noted that all the blog is about is HIV these days... well, in our defense that is what we do...

I will not attempt to condense everything that has happened into one blog, rather I will try and write about what happened and how what happened has affected us, and pushed us to think of different approaches, or just helped us realise that once again, answers are not always possible.

I was in Nagaland last month. Lush Green. Military presence. The reason they're there - the Underground. Drugs. HIV. Colour. Jesus.

Nagaland is predominantly Christian. (See churches and crosses pic above, just outside Dimapur) The tribal landscape, and the disorganised towns have crosses and churches scattered about, leaving you in no doubt as to the Naga's choice of faith. Dimapur - where the Sahara research project on HIV and orphans is based - is a sleepy garrison town on any given day, and then on any given Sunday, it's just a little sleepier. Our God ordained day of rest.

The complexities of this place cannot be laid out in a blog, much less by someone who visited the state for just over a week. The drug rehabs and HIV projects we visited however threw up some interesting issues that struck us as peculiar to Nagaland. The most notable being how difficult it was to sustain the projects. Funds are not easy to come by, and while the Gates Foundation, Global Fund, NACO and all the players are playing, grassroots initiatives often continue to suffer.

One project, just about to start shared this with us:

"We can't raise money here. There are no companies, no businesses that can support us. Not even the church. The underground demands 25% of our income, if we are unlucky enough to be in an area where there are two rival factions, then the other faction would also demand 25% of our income, the church demands 10% as tithe for God, and what people are left with they need to struggle through till the end of the month. Why will they help us? We are drug addicts."

Every project we visited also spoke of the Church, and the successes and failures of working with God's places of worship. Some churches were welcoming of addicts, ensuring their stories were heard, and that they were supported. Others were paranoid and dismissive. This despite both church leaders and NGO community leaders agreeing that the church was well placed (and well funded) to be the community focal point for young people... and of course even those who are HIV positive... While some Nagaland churches have got their head around the need to reach out to and support PLHIV, others still consider them to be cursed by God for their addiction/promiscuity/homosexuality.

We passed an opulent church in Dimapur, central air conditioning, state of the art everything, and I was again pushed to wonder about what the carpenter who died on the cross would have thought about what we do in his name.

'Jesus Saves' and I think a lot of his followers do a pretty good job of saving too, money that is.

It's the same here in Pune. Churches have fat bank accounts, community halls, schools, everything, which is fantastic... no 'HIV people' though. When we approached one church in Pune with the request to run a 'Be an HIV Positive Church' programme, they didn't want us to be referred to as HIV positive because that would infer that HIV positive people are in the church and that's not ok.

This is ignorance. Clearly. These are good people, they are just not ready to accept the reality of HIV in their city, because they believe that HIV is not an issue within their congregation... and it never will be, because HIV+ people will not feel welcome, and those who are HIV+ will never disclose their status within a church environment because of the stigma and discrimination that results from the ignorance and fear...

The church is therefore well placed to continue ignoring the reality, if they choose to do so...

This week we had a meeting with Rev. Dr. Dasan from the United Theological Seminary in Pune. We (as Wake Up Pune) had approached UBS with the idea of organising a national conference on HIV and the Church. They have agreed. Now many would argue that UBS is an academic institution and therefore more open to discussing 'relevant' issues like HIV. The point is however that institutions like UBS are the mothers that push out priests and pastors into the world. What young men and women learn at theological schools and seminaries is what colours their lives of service...

We wish it was that simple. What young men and women learn at seminary is often what they refuse to talk about because of the (perceived) fragile faith of their congregation.

A conference therefore is not good enough... expand to a debating tournament, where the issues of HIV and the Church will have to be looked at from every angle, and not just from the preconceived angle one is comfortable with. Liberal students may have to argue conservative standpoints, and vice versa...

This is not good enough... our plan following this conference is to help UBS expand its already excellent student community programme so as to bring students face to face with the issues on the ground, outside of lecture halls and under-leafy-tree discussions.

This is still not good enough... in the end it is the student (read future shepherd) that must take HIV with him or her to church.

We are currently piloting a programme with corporates in Pune where we speak of 'infecting people with knowledge', infecting people with 'access' to make informed decisions. The need for civil society to rise and fight the epidemic is not limited to marching in the streets and screaming slogans till you're hoarse... it just involves breaking the silence about HIV, talking about it, and realising that if I can protect myself, so can the people I care about... and the virus of knowledge can spread.

Jesus saves... ok, let's help him save, here, now, in the life before death.

"A Harmful Effect on Youth"

2007-07-04T03:33:00.000-07:00

Which of these things is likely to have the most harmful effect on youth? a) contracting HIV b)becoming pregnant c) enjoying sex with a condom?

Condoms are scientifically proven to be more than 99% effective in preventing the transmission of HIV and are similarly effective in family planning use. This medical fact is endorsed by the Indian government and many other governments around the world who promote condom usage as an effective component of preventing the transmission of HIV, along with responsible family planning practices...especially in a country growing as quickly as India.

The problem with this is that condoms have not been successfully integrated into Indian lifeways and cultural norms and are often a taboo subject and one to which a large number of people are ignorant as to the proper use. As earlier blogged about, when they are distributed for free by government sponsored organizations and many NGOs they are handed out like candy (literally in similar packaging sometimes) and their proper use is not explained.

Condoms can only perform their function to 99%+ efficiency when used properly and CONSISTENTLY. It would seem in the government's best interest to do anything possible to bring more of its people into the fold of condom users. Yet, this is evidently not the case in Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh's cabinet minister and others recently have begun proceedings to get a government ordered ban on a new vibrating condom called Crezendo saying, "It is bound to have a harmful effect, especially on youngsters." Unless the vibrating effects cause harm to sensitive areas I can't see how any additional condom users with harm youth, especially given that the alternatives could be as serious as contracting any number of STIs, including HIV, or an unwanted pregnancy.

The argument of the government is based on the assertion that the vibrating nature of the condom makes it a sex toy. Sex toys are illegal in India. Apparently, sex isn't supposed to be an act that one should try to maximize the enjoyment of in any way. The government officials are particularly horrified by the assertion in the accompanying booklet that the vibrating component of the condom can be use for self-pleasure. They liken government endorsements of condoms such as this to government endorsement of blue movies.

It is clear with such complaints that India has come a long way since the temples of Khajuraho and the Kama Sutra. It has gone from a society open to sex to a pseudo-conservative society that pushes its supposedly "moral" values on the public while ignoring the fact that with its exploding population has topped 1.2 billion and a world leading 5.7 million of them live with HIV. Both of which are numbers that lead to a strain on already meager and underfunded resources to support such large populations.

I think it is time that government officials such as these in Madhya Pradesh put aside their own personal agendas as moral police long enough to open their eyes to two problems that are consuming India, the India they serve: over population and HIV. Anything that increases condom use is in the best interest of India. If it increases the enjoyment of sex in the process, I think we can all think of worse side effects.

One day in India's news...

2007-07-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

"Docs look the other way, HIV+ve patient's husband delivers baby"; "Potential cure for HIV discovered"; "Bhugaon School turns away two HIV Students"

All three of these headlines appeared in the June 29th Indian Express...
The articles about the Bhugaon School and the Potential cure for HIV both appeared on the front page, while the one about the pathetic doctors appeared on the second.

I'll discuss the positive article first. A potential cure for HIV has often been talked about as some mythical objective relegated to the world of science fiction. The nature of the H.I. Virus means that it inserts itself into the body's cells and once implanted firmly, has the capacity to force the infected cells to produce new, equally infected, cells. It also has the capacity to exist in the body in a resting state, meaning that it is inactive and indetectable for a number of years before lashing out and spreading quickly. Such a viral condition means that it is difficult to have a drug that constantly targets the active virus, because some components of the virus can be active while others are passive, thus making it difficult to combative enzymes that could knock out the virus to recognize the foreign virus.
The new research shows that a new enzyme has been found which can recognize HIV and recombine the very DNA structure of the H.I. Virus to neutralize it and cut it out effectively from infected cells.
The article, while being eminently optimistic about the future potential of this little enzyme, is also very cautious about being too forward in suggesting that this cure will be on the drug shelves any time soon. It hasn't been proved in anything outside of suceeding in a laboratory setting in three months in cutting out HIV from laboratory controlled human cells. The main benefit of this research is that it has potential to go further with testing.
To put this in the Indian context however, we must realistically admit that while it may be years away from being able to effectively battle HIV in the west, it is further away than that even for our clients from resource limited settings, unless they find themselves chosen for a drug trial.
It is reasonable to get excited about potential cures, yet while we remain optimistic on this front, we must also confront the grim realities of our previous reasons for celebration, including ART.
Anti-Retroviral Therapy was celebrated for reducing HIV in Magic Johnson's body to undetectable, it has worked similar miracles for many people around the world, but largely those in the west and those financially able to fund their treatment. To our clients here in Pune, and similar clients around the world, even ART is not accessible.
ART is on the horizon however, with India's governmnet promising 100,000 people access to it, we must do more to get the government to meet these goals as they have only delivered it to 18,000 of their countrymen and women.
We can celebrate global advances in the fight against HIV, yet we must remember where we work, we do not work in a lab, we work on the ground, and on the ground we must stay grounded in reality, and the reality is that economics still drives science and health. Until something happens to ease the economic burden of ART, many will weaken and die unnecessarily before the glimmer of hope for a cure even reaches the horizon of their thoughts.

Regarding the recent news that several schools in India have been denying admission to positive children, Wake Up Pune released a strongly worded rebuke to the school system and called on the state government to intercede in the matter. There is precedent for this, Kerala's high court recently ordered that five positive children denied their basic human rights of schooling recently be admitted to the school. Locally, a school in Sangli just reversed the error of their ways in bowing to local pressure to admit 28 positive children. The difference in these two stories however comes from the reaction after the children were admitted. We can only do so much to help the students get admitted, perhaps the greater challenge is reducing the society wide stigma that leads to them being denied admission, and then not fully welcomed once admitted. In Kerala, many parents withdrew their children from the school in protest to the admittance of the HIV positive children. Why did they do this? Ignorance. Children will not get HIV from interacting with other children. If you possess even basic knowledge about the virus this is understood, yet it is clear that without adequate education Indian society will continue to be retrograde in addressing this pressing issue and many more children will be unnecessarily denied their rights and stigmatized. There is hope, in Sangli the children were welcomed with flowers and community support. We can only hope that community action and increased awareness will drive a similar result in this Bhugaon case.

The third article provoked my most visceral reaction. Doctors are supposed to be the most educated and the most willing to help those in need. Yet in Meerut, at a Medical College, doctors shouted instruction across a room to a father on how to deliver his child while his HIV positive wife was in labor. Thankfully, and somehow luckily, the child was delivered healthy and HIV negative. The father had to cut the umbilical cord himself and then clean the bed and burn the soiled clothes outside. DOCTORS in India are SILENT, DOCTORS in India are IGNORANT, DOCTORS in India have FEAR, DOCTORS in India have STIGMA, and DOCTORS in India DISCRIMINATE against those who have HIV. If our most esteemed medical professionals don't know how to handle a situation affecting 5.7 million people in their country then where are we at the grassroots? Who are the role models? This needs to change.

The creche and balwadi's

2007-07-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

I arrvied just over two weeks ago. I was here as a Link volunteer last year and really wanted to come back....so here I am.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to do this time, but I definately wanted to work with children. So I was assigned to work with the Toys for Tots project in the creches and balwadi. Alongside collegues, Jane, Natalie and Jade, we all distributed clothes and toys to all the creches ana balwadi's.

Now that all the clothes and toys, etc have been distributed, it is my job to go around the creche and check on discipline, use of toys etc... The sad thing is, that most of the time, the toys sit in their boxes gathering dust, which is very sad.
The changes that we have made by introducing medical and health kits, means that (hopefully), the attitudes will change and the creches and balwadi's will be a happy place.

But it is going to take a lot of time and patience, it ain't gonna happen overnight!

Use a condom...PROPERLY!

2007-07-02T23:52:00.000-07:00

In unofficial testing conditions we recently managed to pour nearly 9 liters of water into an Indian government issued condom. Not only does this confirm that condoms do not leak and are clearly strong enough to perform their duties in preventing the mixing of body fluids during sex, but it also shows that condoms can be a space efficient water carrying device-yet this was not the point of the exercise.
Apparently the latter is the purpose for which some of the 1 billion free condoms distributed by different sources in India was used for last year. According to the author of a recent article only one-third of these free condoms are actually being used for the purpose for which they were manufactured. In rural settings they have been used to carry water, in urban settings they are mixed with tar to pave roads, and the military has been using them to protect their guns from water and dust. Apparently the latex in the condoms has also been melted down and re-used as children's toys.
One of the guidelines that we follow strictly before distributing condoms is to do a full condom demonstration. The danger of not demonstrating the proper use of condoms before handing them out for free to populations that often lack even general sex education and any prior exposure to condoms may actually equal the risk of not using condoms during sex. Without a demonstration condoms may not only be used as fill for roads or for protecting the metal of India's guns, but it could be put on improperly and tear or fail in some other way due to user error. Condoms are clinically and scientifically proven to be at least 99% effective in preventing the transmission of HIV and in preventing pregnancy IF USED PROPERLY AND CONSISTENTLY. If improperly used during sexual intercourse the ramifications are serious. Word of mouth messaging that condoms don't actually work or that they are manufactured improperly will be more effective at halting use than any positive messaging on our behalf.
Some people have the theory that simply blitzing populations with free condoms will help with HIV prevention and family planning, but we are of the opinion (which is partially validated by this recent article) that condoms can only be effectively distributed and thus effectively used for their intended purposes if they are distributed after a full condom demonstration.
To take something positive from the article, if the military trusts condoms to protect their guns, ...shouldn't you trust condoms (used properly and consistently) to protect you?

HIV and AIDS Corporate Awareness Success!!!

2007-06-20T02:59:00.000-07:00

On Friday June 1, the Xansa Corp, an outsourcing and technology company welcomed the Wake Up Pune team to their headquarters. The main lobby was kindly provided to spread HIV awareness through slide presentations, HIV knowledge quizzes, and a kiosk promoting the Wake Up Pune Campaign that employees could access at their own convenience. While enjoying their breaks, they had the opportunity to purchase some beautiful jewelry, pillowcases, purses and scarves made by women living with HIV from Sahara Aalhad in Delhi. All proceeds went to better the facilities provided by Sahara Aalhad Residential Care and Rehabilitation Centre. Staff were also provided with accurate information about the transmission of HIV, how they can protect themselves and their loved ones, and learned how HIV and AIDS Stigma and Discrimination indirectly fuel the spread of a disease that now has become an epidemic in their own city. The many myths surrounding HIV transmission were theatrically broken through short skits followed up by the truth about HIV transmission. The performance entitled the Stigma Chakra vividly portrayed how Silence, Ignorance, Fear, Stigma and Discrimination further the spread of HIV within the community. Michael Marshall of Sahara Aalhad in Pune spoke about the REALITY of HIV in this city and let the corporate sector know that their socioeconomic status will not protect them from a virus that currently infects 5.7 million people in their country. The primary message conveyed was that HIV does not discriminate, but we discriminate against people living with HIV and AIDS and those that seek accurate information in order to protect themselves. More importantly, upon receiving this newfound knowledge about HIV, the employees gained a sense of agency in protecting themselves and had the opportunity to sign up to volunteer or receive even more information. The feedback received was positive, as many were surprised at how inaccurate their previous understanding of HIV was and really wanted to know more. In fact, many signed up to volunteer and receive more information.
In one short day, this group of young professionals gained much insight into how HIV is affecting their community, and learned how breaking the silence and spreading the knowledge they gained can help end the stigma chakra and combat HIV in Pune. The employess at Xansa were told to WAKE UP to the reality of HIV in Pune. Many were shocked to hear the truth, and the truth is that 1.8% of Pune’s population is currently infected. Unofficial figures report that about 2.3% of the population is HIV+, more than twice the national average. We all need to wake up! The reality is that HIV is in Pune!! Breaking the myth that this virus only infects the poor or is a product of perceived immoral behaviour is vital in effectively preventing HIV and AIDS, as well as bettering the lives of the many neglected and stigmatized individuals living with HIV. The employees were told to be more POSITIVE about HIV. This attitude means being Positive about educating ourselves and others about HIV/AIDS, being Positive about raising awareness in our wider community and being Positive about reaching out to people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

The distancing effect in the media

2007-06-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

Everyday for the past week or so I have been going through the Times of India and Indian Express desperately searching for articles about HIV and AIDS. Most days, there is no mention of the virus that is now an EPIDEMIC in the city of Pune. On June 13th however, I found two. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment upon reading them both.
The article featured in the Indian Express titled, “Symposium to strengthen police response to HIV” was about a symposium to increase HIV awareness among police officers in Pune. While I agree that any HIV awareness campaign is important, what aggravated me was the rational behind the symposium. The rational was that police officers require HIV education more than other sectors of society because of their close contact with the groups deemed most at risk for HIV. These “risk groups” consisted of sex workers, drug users and men who have sex with men (MSM). Why is this a problem? It is a problem because once again, HIV information was presented in relation to specific groups and NOT the specific routes of transmission that put ANYONE at risk. Framing HIV and AIDS information in such a way causes the majority, who do not belong to these groups, to distance themselves from HIV and AIDS and decrease their own risk perception. The rationality of the masses then becomes, “HIV is not my problem”. As a result, so few feel the need to get tested, practice safe sex, educate themselves and others about HIV and AIDS, and finally, this type of discourse fuels even more stigma and discrimination directed towards people living with HIV. Saying that HIV exists among sex workers, drug users and MSM (disliked groups of society whose behaviour is perceived as immoral), perpetuates the myth that HIV is caused by immoral behaviour. HIV does not judge and is a virus with very specific biological traits that enters the body through very specific routes. Instead, the masses have a false sense of safety because of their detachment from “immoral” conduct. The effect is so implicit that we don’t even notice how powerful this phenomenon is.
What's more upsetting is that this article had the ability to educate so many people about HIV transmission and prevention!!! Instead, it only perpetuated the myth that HIV exists only among certain groups in society. The truth is that AIDS does not discriminate, and has now seeped into all sectors of society: rich, poor, male, female, educated, uneducated, etc. The only thing that can protect a person from HIV is the truth and the agency to apply this truth. Instead, we continuously reinforce the myths about HIV and AIDS through the reporting of so-called “facts”. A cycle that has resulted in a HIV prevalence in Pune that is twice the national average. When will this cycle stop?!
It certainly didn’t stop in the second article I came across in The Times of India, titled “AIDS: How it’s creeping into our lives: Nari Study focuses on Women Who Denied Being CSWs But Sought Treatment for STI”.
The title alone is misleading. It implies that women who have STIs are commercial sex workers in denial of their profession. The article then goes on to report that the majority of these women are married and have never had more than one sexual partner. Does that sound like a commercial sex worker to you???!!! The article gets even more ludicrous when it explicitly states that the women in the study are not representative of women in Pune in general, who apparently have a much lower HIV prevalence. I repeat, of the 1.,021 women in this study, the majority were married and had only one sexual partner. Does this not sound like a representative sample to you? How are they more like commercial sex workers than average Indian women who follow the traditions and customs of their society? The contradictions were endless, and the way this article managed to take this scientific study about HIV and women, and make it about commercial sex workers was preposterous!
While both articles did stress the importance of educating police officers and women who are at risk for STIs, they failed to mention the importance of educating ALL people. The opportunity to do just that was lost, once again, and the cycle of IGNORANCE and DENIAL continues……

A Failed Opportunity

2007-06-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

In this field there is a constant struggle to find platforms from which to spread our messages. These messages are sometimes of awareness, sometimes of acceptance, and sometimes of debunking myth; and almost always a combination of these and many other things. We often have to concentrate weeks or months of effort on a single day to reach out, such as the recent 20 May event. Sometimes we reach 10 people, sometimes we reach 1,000.
I wonder what the daily circulation of the Indian Express is? Undoubtedly this newspaper reaches more people directly in a single day than we can hope to reach via many of our outreach activities. The news and information about the world is presented in black and white on your doorstep every morning. What an opportunity.
The title of this blog however is, A FAILED OPPORTUNITY. Newspapers like the Indian Express have a duty to not only tell the news, but to inform their readers.
At our press conferences we always hand our press information kids and give them resources to better inform their writing about HIV and AIDS. It is dreadfully clear however that these sheets are often discarded before an article is penned.
The article on June 5, 2007 regarding HIV infection in migrant labourers in Bilur is not the first time that The Indian Express has been complicet (perhaps unknowingly so) in perpetuating misinformation and distorted views regarding the virus. Going through the article word by word I can see so many opportunities for the author to help us, and help Pune by reaching all the readers and correcting misconceptions.
In the first paragraph an interview with an infected man quotes him as saying, "I don't think I will live more than two years. I was not aware that I would get disease after having sex with prostitutes. But now it is too late" At this point the author misses the opportunity to do a great service to their readership by informing them that the infected man may likely live for much longer than two years if newly infected man keeps to proper nutrition or gets access to ART treatment (also a good point to point out that this is theoretically provided by the government although despite the 5.7 Million people living with HIV in India, the government only targeted 100,000 to receive free ART and only 18,000 of those people actually received their drugs). So perhaps if this system got smoothed out, people like this migrant labourer in Bilur could live with the virus as a chronic condition as many do in the west. He also states that he didn't realize that he would get the disease after having sex with a prostitute. Firstly, it isn't a disease...it is a virus. Secondly, you don't automatically get it from having sex with a prostitute, nor can you only get it from having sex with a prostitute. With any sex, the key word is unprotected. The notion that having protected sex with a prostitute will prevent HIV transmission might be seen as promoting behavior that is not in accord with Indian morality or something and it is unlikely that Indian Express would publish such a truthful statement. If your wife is HIV positive and you have unprotected sex with her, you have a better chance of getting the virus than having protected sex with a prostitute whose status you do not know. However, this should not endorse any form of high risk behavior, but rather it would be a good time to either promote condom use or debunk some of the stereotypes that are continuously propagated to the detriment of workers like us who try to keep stigma from furthering the spread of the virus.
The article also commonly uses the term HIV/AIDS. We have stopped using this within our organization because of the connotation that they are the same thing. They are NOT. HIV is a virus that attacks your immune system, yet which can be fought for many years with the right combination of nutrition and ART, AIDS is a condition resulting from unchecked HIV driving your immune system into the ground so that you are susceptible to AIDS defining illnesses or opportunistic infections that can kill you. You DO NOT die of HIV, you do however die of AIDS related illnesses. They are different and you can be a very healthy PLHIV without being intrisically progressed through sematics to having AIDS, which is fatal.
In another paragraph it talks about a marriage being cancelled because of a positive HIV test. This bit of reporting could have been dovetailed with information on how to deal with HIV within marriage through safe sex and HIV in pregnancy through an ART regimen.
Later in the article, after again calling HIV a disease rather than a virus, it quotes a politician as saying that having more than 1 percent of his constituency infected is a "cause for concern". This should certainly say that if this one village politician is concerned by 1 percent than all of Maharashtra and all of India should be concerned because the country looms near that mark while areas of Maharashtra double it.
The article does mention that cultural and language barriers hinder access to medical assistance and treatment, but overall the article is severely lacking in doing justice to the news item.
I often think that news in general exists on the misery of the world, so perhaps it is that in doing something to allay this misery, the news corporations believe that they are taking away future business from themselves. Why else would they not use this opportunity to educate further on the issues that they raise. The article focuses only on a gloomy situation and indeeds tries to cast it in even a deeper pall than is necessary rather than using the platform to educate.

A day in the life (or something equally cheesy)

2007-05-31T23:40:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

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 !

2007-05-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-05-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

"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.

2007-05-04T03:29:00.000-07:00

Moving right along...

2007-04-24T01:55:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a press release for the opening of the Deep Griha sponsored Muktangan Mitra Nutrition Centre in Goltekadi and included the DMAV under the list of dignitaries present. Enough said.

Speaking of the Nutrition Centre, it opened on Monday morning and will serve the HIV infected IV drug user community by providing them with nutritious meals and soon vocational training opportunities to help rehabilitate them and assist them in living their lives as healthy PLHIV. The ceremony itself was nice, and I can personally vouch that the food served here is especially tasty.

The signage outside the centre notes that it is for HIV infected persons, thus the status of those who visit the centre will be known by passers-by. I would say that I am not sure how I feel about this, whether or not their status should remain in their own confidence, or if it should be common knowledge. If stigma didn't exist then their status being common knowledge wouldn't matter, but we are a long way from stigma regarding HIV disappearing.
Our new ad campaign for Wake-Up Pune will specifically address stigma as its main focus, and coupled with the bold "REJECTED" that is emblazoned upon the flank of the DMAV it will be direct. Will people listen? The new add campaign will be bold and "in your face", I think they will listen, the difficult bit is whether or not they will apply it. We need to reach everyone. How do we do this? We have awareness sessions in communities, in schools, in businesses; we have posters; we have concerts; we have marches; we have vigils (May 20th-MG Road); we hopefully soon will have stigma chakra statues made by local student artists able to be moved around Pune. Once we reach everyone, what more can we do? It is up to the individuals to apply it to their actions as "HIV positive" people free from stigma.

"we have sessions": The opening yesterday just kicked off the day for the DISHA crew. Spinning off the opening ceremony, the Goltekadi community was the staging area for two more awareness events. I'm beginning to feel like a groupie on tour with a rock band. We were separated from the DMAV for the first time in a while and that absence was noticed as it crimped our capacity for not only volume and visibility, but most importantly for the semi-privacy that it affords our condom demonstrations. While we should have used it for the first session, given to a mixed gender and age crowd of about 100, the second session's geographical setting within the community prohibited the entrance of the DMAV. Both sessions featured more women than we usually get, the second was probably the most women I've ever seen at an event, which was great. To combat repetition, the team employs several different presentations to rotate and keep themselves fresh and the information sharply delivered. In the second session Meera really stole the show, not that this is new, but I think a forthcoming blog will present a retrospective on her acting talents and her ability to really engage the audience in both a humorous and serious way. Although I don't speak Marathi and only know the general outline of what is said in the presentations, I feel like they are well presented and efficient, I always leave feeling good about the potential outcome, and at least the fact that it will spark conversations about the material within the community for days to come.
More to come this week: Wake-up Pune meetings; all day training session for students on HIV awareness; interviews with young people about ways they gain their information about sex (especially important if sex-ed in Maharashtra keeps getting hamstrung); DMAV sessions in the city and in rural areas; the beginning of the ambitious cultural survey of the Tadiwala Rd. community; a multi-day conference in Lonavla on HIV and the Church.

Onward...

DMAV on the loose outside of Pune!

2007-04-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday the DMAV expanded its operations outside of Pune, and its crew deployed to Kedgaon on Market Day to give shoppers, pedestrians, and merchants exposure to the DISHA HIV awareness presentations. The motto might be join the fight, but on Tuesday, DISHA brought the fight to them.

Two audience participants who joined the fight

As this was the first foray of the DMAV outside of Pune there were a few kinks, but these were ironed out and the professionalism that the team has acquired really showed through.

Problem 1: Dodgy (I’m becoming more British in my speech daily) microphones. While the amplification of the DISHA team’s voices over the ambient noises that are unavoidable in India is perhaps the greatest benefit the DMAV provides, the sound system is not immune to techno-snafus and unfortunately we ran into this. I was very impressed how seamlessly the team coped with this. As a performer one can be shaken easily by equipment malfunctions of this sort, and likewise the crowd can lose interest if a performance has hitches or complications. The team recognized the situation with the microphones as it unfolded and very professionally rotated mics, made some adjustments, and overall didn’t panic when things didn’t go absolutely smoothly. Their experience guided them through, and with flying colors at that. No one will ever accuse the DISHA team of speaking too quietly, and with or without microphones they tried their best to ensure that the message was not lost on the crowd.

I don’t mean to focus too much on the negative aspect of the day, but as there were so few negatives, I thought I might get it out of the way first.

Overall the scorecard reads that there were three full presentations given at different locations around the bazaar. All three presentations involved the DMAV, a street play, an educational and informative lecture or session, an HIV positive speaker (an incredible asset to the mission and amazing to see her confidence grew as the day went on), and a condom demonstration and distribution. The first session at the near end of the bazaar featured 75-100 spectators and some eager participants from the audience, the second session at a motorcycle parking area at the far end after lunch featured around 80 spectators, while the third session in the heart of the bazaar had a smaller stationary crowd but featured many transients who absorbed at least some of the presentation before continuing on their way. Considering the heat, it was quite an accomplishment, and despite the fatigue, the DISHA team maintained their high level of performance throughout all three presentations and even had the energy for a laughter filled 50 km ride back to Tadiwala Rd.

The young HIV Positive speaker

Key points: A. Visibility attracts. The DMAV, the red saris, the drumming, the speakers, even the white volunteers (flypaper). Anything to get people to come and hear the message. B. Condoms, unfortunately, many people take to free handouts regardless of what they are. At the third session condoms were distributed before the demonstration. That was a mistake that we will remedy in the future. I honestly believe some of the people who held out their hands thought they were getting candy and were quite confused when it wasn’t. We need condoms to get into the right hands, they need to be in the hands of knowledgeable users, because it is of great danger if they are used improperly, because then word spreads that they don’t work, or they break easily, or anything else that is spread by word of mouth that could undermine all the good we have done in our campaign to try to break down the cultural resistance to condoms.

Quote regarding condoms from a book I’m reading called The Politics of Aids, by Peter Gill, “If the Church is really interested in seeing its followers live, it should back the use of condoms to save its own people from Aids. I am not trying to support immorality by supporting those who cannot abstain and be faithful to use condoms, but there is a need to recognize the weakness of those we are living with and therefore help them to live.” President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni 2005 address to East African Roman Catholic bishops.

After a DISHA meeting this morning the DMAV is getting even cooler…and you thought that wasn’t possible.

Perspective: Taking Advocacy to the Grassroots

2007-04-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

Standing outside Nehru Memorial hall, a couple of hours before the much-awaited Youth AIDS day rock show, I absentmindedly watched Ryan talk with other international volunteers as a hundred thoughts crowded my mind. Mentally ticking off a last-minute checklist for the show; going over the afternoon’s conversation with the counselor at Bhojwani school about attitude of teachers towards HIV education; planning out the Phase 2 for YAHAAN and so much more went on in my mind all at the same time.

“…when a housewife in Pune would march on the streets asking for introduction of 2nd line Anti – Retroviral Treatment for AIDS patients…” I overheard Hans telling a group of young volunteers from ILS College who were sitting on the steps not too far away.

I pulled a mental ‘break’ and all other thoughts jarred into a happy collision as this one thought stood defiantly, demanding absolute undivided attention.

What will bring a housewife onto the streets for something related to AIDS – the seemingly tabooed disease?

What will make office-going men and women of corporate India sacrifice their Sundays to protest against discrimination faced by PLHIV at workplace?

What will it take for students to fight for an HIV + child’s right to education?

What will it take to Wake Up Pune to the reality of HIV and AIDS?
What will it take for Pune to Join the Fight against HIV?

It will definitely take much more than just HIV awareness sessions.

Pune may have ‘heard’ about HIV and AIDS. But now, Pune needs to ‘see’ HIV and AIDS.

People need to experience HIV and its ramifications more closely for them to care enough to make a difference.

Pune needs to talk to men and women who have been disowned by their families and thrown out of their homes, to comprehend the agony and pain of being stigmatized;

It needs to hear from those who have lost their jobs, to understand the devastating effects of ignorance and discrimination at workplace;

It needs to see HIV+ people, to learn about ‘positive living’;

Pune needs to meet AIDS patients, to understand the urgency of introducing 2nd line ARV drugs.

Every single person in Pune needs to ‘feel’ HIV and AIDS and only then will Pune truly wake up and join the fight!!!

LET’S WAKE UP, PUNE!
LET’S JOIN THE FIGHT!

The Chaos Within - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

2007-04-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at the Bojwani Academy. It is a school. A school with a particular philosophy of education that would be alien to other mainstream schools in this city.

At best, in other schools, while the holistic development of a child is often deliberated upon it is rarely followed through with. And when speaking of a holistic approach, integral to developing a child is sex education.

Reports in the local newspapers about sex education being banned, bonfires of new text books with lurid drawings, and the righteous indignation of hard right politicians is tempered with the national report that over 50% of kids in India are 'severely' sexually abused.

Why did the writers of the report feel the need to use the word 'severe.' Is there a kind of sexual abuse of children that is gentle? Acceptable? An anchor story in a newspaper is hardly the vehicle to understand such a complex issue. The report will have to be read!

Bottom line, cries of NO SEX EDUCATION PLEASE THIS IS MAHARASHTRA is a fucked up nonsense.

We work at the grassroots with HIV. The statistic that 85% of HIV transmission in the state is through unprotected sex is not a statistic to us. We see it. Thankfully, Bojwani sees it too. When I pulled out a dildo and flourished it no one batted an eyelid and the 30 something boys and girls (average age 15) watched intently as the condom went on... and then came off. After the session they wanted to try it themselves, of course with all accompanying sniggering that teenagers are wont to do when feeling embarressed or challenged. The questions and concerns these children... young men and women, came up with in the course of an hour and a half underscored Bojwani's approach to education. The questions and comments were lucid and forthright, and also just a little bit awkward, as they should be at this age.

Today put yesterday, and the need for yesterday in to sharp perspective. I walked into the community to visit two of my clients who are very ill. The area in which they live is the same area where Jyoti lived, and as I walked by some recognized me and with a puzzled look they asked - because they knew she was gone - are you here to see Lagad? I smiled, and reminded myself of why I had cut down visits into the community... the 'DISHA Sir's' visits give away the client's status.

The second visit was to a client badly in need of 2nd line ART. It costs Rs.5500 a month. ART is a lifelong commitment. I had thus far refused to help because of the lack of sustainability. Today the family pledged Rs.2000 a month. The client lay on his back unable to speak, his body shivering with pain, his stomach contracting... he lay scrunched up, tormented, wanting nothing more than to die, to end the suffering.

The decisions we take are often onerous... their name is legion.

The client, his family, the physician that first put him of ART (with no adherence counselling), the village elders (thought it best he remain in the city), his colleagues (they are willing to raise funds for him), Maya and Lata (primary care givers), Avinash, Dr. Madhu (our HIV specialist), me (should we have taken this decision earlier, should I have waited until I saw his torment, could I have not ensured that this man was back on his feet by saying yes, we will sponsor your 2nd line ART.)

Every one of us has taken a decision that brought us to where we were at that moment, kneeling by his side, holding the hand of a grown man as he repeatedly convulsed in pain.

What about the others that will now demand it? What now? How do we proceed? What will be our policy towards 2nd line ART? Has it changed because I could not bear to watch a man suffer in front of me when my decision had the potential to ease his suffering? What will we do to strengthen the delivery mechanisms of 1st line ART? What do we do to educate the local doctors and health care givers about ART and HIV? Will our plans work for Tadiwala Road and Ramtekadi? Will Wake Up Pune make the difference we hope for at NACO/NARI run ART clinics by forming a crucial partnership between civil society and the government?

The questions are legion too, and the answers... But we will find them. Together.

The client is now with Dr. Madhu as she determines which regimen of 2nd line ART would be best for him.

We will find the funds.

He will live.

And Tomorrow... the dance goes on.

Stepping Up: The Magnificent Seven

2007-04-13T00:09:00.000-07:00

On the afternoon of the day the DMAV was unleashed on Pune, a quieter event also signaled a change in the way DISHA will conduct its activities.
The HIV positive clients of DISHA in Tadiwala Rd. voted to form their own executive board to begin to take control over the running of the organization themselves. This continues the steps towards empowering the clients to live full lives with the virus rather than being forced to withdraw from life due to the pressures of stigma that often rule in India. The clients are now free to plan their own social events, building on such things as the regular terrace parties that blast off on the roof of Tadiwala Rd. in monthly versions of the yearly Celebration of Life.
The board positions representing the 82 person client body are President, secretary, treasurer, and five committee members, including one youth representative. The 18 year old youth representative is being groomed to be a spokesperson for the PLHIV community (People living with HIV), and she will undoubtedly be the face of the PLHIV community here at Tadiwala Rd. for many healthy years to come.
Another step on the way forward.

Joining the Fight to Conquer the Stigma by Eleanor Tyrrell

2007-04-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

During my time at Deep Griha I have been involved in a small research project involving the collection of data to produce a teaching package for health care professionals in Tadiwala Road. Part of the research involved interviewing people living with HIV who come to DISHA for their treatment.

After interviewing a few clients with the aid of a translater I saw more and more on one hand that people living with HIV are just like other people going about their normal daily lives. However, on the other they are not because most of them have been made outcasts among their community, family and friends. In today’s society it is so upsetting and shocking to think that these people are still being discriminated against. This stigma and discrimination comes from the lack of HIV education in the community. With DISHA projects and the current Wake Up Pune campaign these community attitudes can be changed.

Great Expectations? HIV and AIDS Research in Tadiwala Road by Joanne O'neill

2007-04-11T04:01:00.000-07:00

Interviewing doctors has always proved a difficult task, at least at home anyway! Long working hours and heavy workloads to mention but a few. Initially I had reservations about going into the community of Tadiwala road slum areas to meet the local doctors. It was my first encounter with a slum so I was feeling a little dubious, for one not knowing an ounce of Marathi or Hindi and then expecting a questionnaire to be completed, was I expecting to much??? I owe a big thank you to Shakuntala for arranging all the appointments and for breaking the ice with the doctors, it was down to me after that to get the data required, so out came the smiles and the “Irish Blarney”!! Each doctor greeted me with a grand Indian handshake, offering chai or a chilled drink. They were more than happy to share their thoughts and personal experiences with unlimited time, in fact I often had to usher my own exit, as I was very conscious of patients waiting outside. Most waiting rooms were crammed with eager waiting patients, in fact some doctors surgeries were more like mini hospitals, with beds of patients connected to intravenous drips and all sorts! So I was very aware of time. Overall it was an amazing experience, despite the lack of resources a feeling of compassion was very present with most of the doctors. They were very receptive and all expressed a desire to learn more regarding the management of HIV. For me, it was a very fulfilling experience and one I won't forget.

Unleash the Beast: Curtains draw on the DMAV

2007-04-10T01:43:00.000-07:00

Social work is supposed to help people, not cause traffic accidents.

However, following the debut of the product of Deep Griha’s version of Pimp My Ride...we could be in a bit of trouble on that front.

The D-MAV (DISHA Mobile Awareness Vehicle) is a converted Ambulance, and while its purpose is to help people stay healthy and reduce stigma and discrimination, it did not seem to help Pune's commuters have a smooth ride to work on Monday morning. Several times motorists forgot to move their vehicles forward after traffic signal changes and bicyclists meandered off course with their eyes glued to the messages on the side of the van.
After all, that is the point.

The point is to bring the message of DISHA and Wake-up Pune to Pune...to wake them up and to increase awareness of the epidemic that is in their city. Hitting them with a big, black, bold, rolling statement on Monday morning is yet another arrow in the quiver of Wake-Up Pune.

The blast off of the big black bus officially happened with Major Tom (the Wake Up Pune logo)
getting serenaded by the DISHA team before a ribbon cutting.

Then the D-MAV was loaded for its first mission. Loaded with condoms, loaded with dildos (for condom demonstrations), loaded with awareness, loaded with hope, loaded with loudspeakers and microphones, and most importantly, loaded with the red sari-clad DISHA team doing a corking job replacing the A-team as the soldiers of righteous causes deploying from the red and black beast.

I felt as cool as I've felt in India being invited to join the team and sail along on their coattails, er…sari-tails for the day. Our first stop was Yerwada slum where our partners Sahara Aalhad are about to open a new outreach centre.

Driving through the narrow streets, occasionally blaring the siren, the DMAV became the pied piper. By the time it rolled to a stop at an intersection we already had a following. The rear double doors opened and the DISHA team exited. The sea of red pouring forth from the
black van was a sight to behold.

The new speaker system was set up and soon the amplified voices of
awareness boomed around the slum. The excitement amongst the DISHA
team and the Sahara team was tangible at the prospect of the vast new arena of
outreach that this inaugural event signalled as open territory.

The team rocked through their street play as usual and the awareness messages were delivered
to a crowd of around 200 who stood in the hot sun to hear the message and see what the commotion was all about.

And yes, a boldly painted van, a dozen women in red saris, two speakers, and a handful of white volunteers in a slum area in India will cause a commotion.

For us, commotion of this sort are good, anything to bring in a bigger audience because once they start watching they may get hooked.

In accordance with the new standards of DISHA, free condoms were distributed out of the back of the D-MAV following a demonstration of the proper use of a condom on a dildo by the male DISHA workers.
The pseudo-conservative culture of India was on display during this phase. The knowledge that everyone is having sex and no one is acknowledging that or protecting themselves, or making themselves aware, led to very few men actually asking for condoms. Two brave young men
however clambered into the back of the van for the demonstration,
and seeing the ice was broken, the proverbial flood gate was opened as men pressed in close to see the demonstration and receive the free boxes of condoms.

All in all, the Yerwada session was the most impressive DISHA awareness and outreach session I've been to, and I've been to several. This, without a doubt, marks a new chapter in the Wake-Up Pune campaign and opens up the communities of greater Pune and rural Pune district to the campaign.

The day did not end there. The team moved on to work with a high-risk group at a truck stop near Sahara Aalhad's centre in Wagholi.

The D-MAV slotted itself amidst the brown trucks and again the red-saried women drew a crowd as truckers emerged from their naps under the shade of their trucks and gathered around.

This time, after the proper technique was demonstrated by the DISHA men, the condom and dildo were offered to the crowd to try themselves and the rest watched intently. A few failed attempts were corrected and, after a successful trial, many more boxes were distributed to the eagerly awaiting drivers.

The day ended for the DMAV back at Tatya Tope.
Even after the sessions finish its day doesn’t end. Every time it roams the streets of Pune it is spreading awareness. This is truly a weapon to use for good.

If the first day was any indication, the DMAV is going to wake up Pune.

n.b. Coming soon, a hip-hop song inspired by a day with the DMAV by TBA. That is how inspiring this thing is.

Mahindra United World College - A Castle in the Sky

2007-04-10T00:57:00.000-07:00

When I was asked to go with Hans and the rest of the DISHA volunteers to give a presentation at a nearby international school I was fairly indifferent to the idea although any excuse to get away from the computer for a day was an exciting prospect. Little did I know that the trip would have a pretty profound effect on me and I would still have vivid images running through my head a week later.

The school was called Mahindra United World College and was home to over 200 students (16 – 19) and 75 nationalities. It is perched on top of the mountain that it owns (yes, the school seems to own half the valley). The school is a maze of modern, angular stone and glass buildings, lush vegetation, green (rather than yellow) lawns and ponds filled with fish. One could not wish for a more beautiful place to live and study. It was a far cry from my inner city state school back in England and an even farther cry from the schools and labourers villages that lined the valley bottom. The stark contrast between Mahindra, a castle in the sky, and everywhere else I had seen in India made me feel uncomfortable and unnerved me somewhat. How could there be so much wealth living in such close proximity to so much poverty? It isn’t right although I have learnt that this is a question that can be asked all over India from Koregaon Park to the streets of Mumbai. The extremes are unimaginable but Mahindra seemed to accentuate them even more. I couldn’t quite work out why.
However, the longer I spent at the school the more relaxed yet jealous I felt. The students were in an incredible position to affect social change. It is a core requirement of their international baccalaureate to be involved with the creativity, Action and Service (CAS) programme and students spend three to four afternoons a week working in various social welfare projects. Obviously such wealth, when shared, can have a positive effect on the local area after all.

The students hold regular debates on everything from Sufism to gender and sexuality, weekly discussion sessions on issues of current global concern and follow a course that introduces them to Indian culture and philosophy. I felt that our HIV presentation would be almost redundant in such a liberal, educated environment. Don’t get me wrong, I know that HIV does not discriminate and is as much a problem among the wealthy as it is among the poor but I got the feeling they were going to know everything already.
I needn’t have worried however as Hans changed the focus a little in order not to patronise the students and his graphic, open and honest presentation was listened to attentively before being followed by a high level discussion that focussed on both HIV and the work of Deep Griha. By the end of the session I was feeling incredibly optimistic that a partnership between Mahindra and Deep Griha was on the cards. The school certainly have the resources to really help both Deep Griha and DISHA.

After a delicious lunch of paneer and papaya we drove down the mountain from the oasis that is Mahindra, returned to normality and was once again engulfed with an unnerving, uncomfortable feeling. I have been trying to shake it off ever since as Mahindra was an incredible educational establishment, doing amazing work and with Nelson Mandela, the honourary president of United World Colleges who am I to judge. Maybe I am just jealous.

City of Child Cricket Pitch- the grand opening

2007-04-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

It was an early rise last Saturday for those of us lucky enough to see the opening of the new cricket pitch at Deep Griha's City of Child. We piled into the minibus and drove out into the beautiful countryside that surrounds the City of Child compound. We arrived in time for a quick tour around the pitch and presentation area from fellow Link volunteers. The pitch was a labour of love not only for the volunteers, but also for the locals and the sponsors of the project, Synygy.
Synygy is a local Indian business that supplied 50% of the funds for the building of the pitch. This helped provide for the raw materials- not forgetting the all-important wickets!
Before the first official match, a short presentation was held to honour all those who had contributed to the project. Everyone was happy to receive the garlands and wee roses as a thank you. After much impatience on the side of the City of Child boys, the match began. One team consisted of Synygy employees, and the other of CoC children and Link volunteers. A big cheer went up as the bowler lobbed the first ball at the batsman. It was a short but sweet match, with the usual mix of excitement and tension. Although the match was won by the CoC team, no-one was quite sure what the score actually was! But that didn't matter- what matters is that everyone had fun and a lasting improvement has been added to the City of Child compound. I'm sure there will be many, many more matches to come!

Getting Over the Language Barrier by Kirsten Gauld

2007-04-02T02:20:00.000-07:00

Today was the day that I made the first real connection with the teachers and helpers in my Creche at Ramtekadi. Often when the children are asleep we just work in silence. Today I got out my notepad and started to draw. I showed the teacher and helper and they started to copy what I had drawn. Before long it had turned into an English/Marathi lesson through art. I started to draw the outline of a child and then the helper wanted me to draw her. Once I had finished I showed her and she was ecstatic and she showed all the helpers in the creche opposite. Although the language barrier was still there after that conversation, communication was a little easier and now I can't wait to go back!

Small Change, Big Difference by Natalie Armitage

2007-04-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

When I was assigned to the creche and balwadi project I was excited and enthusiastic about the possible prospects. At first it was quite slow and going into the balwadis was emotionally difficult and to a certain extent very draining. However, seeing these conditions made me and the others on the team more determined to change things for the long term and have a lasting effect on the conditions of the creches and balwadis within Deep Griha. With this determination in mind Jade and I came together and performed a small puppet show for the children that incorporated hygiene routines before eating and after going to the toilet. All the children became involved in the show by following the actions demonstrated by the puppets. I also made them a poster to put up in their classroom. A couple of days later before the children ate their lunch a bucket of water of water was brought to the class for the children to wash their hands. This had never happened before and that was obvious from the childrens confused looks. They didn't know what the water was for. After the initial confusion all the children were excited and enthusiastic about washing their hands. They treated it as a new game. I was moved by this small simple hand washing exercise. It is little changes like this that makes this experience so special and makes me feel glad to be involved with Deep Griha.

The Chaos Within - The Dancing Queen of DISHA

2007-04-02T01:55:00.000-07:00

We forget sometimes on the project how important writing blogs are. Just now a spate of blogs will follow as we encourage young volunteer writers to step up and document their experiences in their own individualistic style... and we are confident that the blogs will not degenerate into "I can't believe I am in Inidaaaa!" blogs that rave about food and rickshaws and beggars.

Blogs give us an opportunity to share our experiences, and also for some of us, the chance to rant, or vent. Sometimes all I do is rant or vent, and while I am conscious of how it helps me, I often wonder if it just makes people shy away from the Deep Griha blog. I suspect it has done, especially my use of a certain word that can grate when overused. Mea culpa.

And I take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who has been offended by my use of language. That was never the intention, nor was it the intention for me to communicate how frustrated I was... no, the blog just helped me exhale.

Last week we had 5 new fieldworkers join the DISHA team.

Kavita - She lives in Ramtekadi. Her husband died of AIDS related illnesses.
Vaishali - An ex-Deep Griha fieldworker from Bibwewadi. She is open about her HIV+ status.
Deepali - She lives in Ramtekadi. She worked as a doctor's assistant in Ramtekadi.
Sunita - Young mum. Green. Intelligent.
Sheetal - Young mum (19). Talented dancer. Came through the Aadhar Kendra Child Sponsorship Programme. She is a DISHA client.

This team of fieldworkers will work in the Ramtekadi Community with Madhuri as their Field Supervisor. Madhuri was a wonderful and committed fieldworker for two years in Tadiwala Road, and we are sorry to see her move, and will miss her energy on the project. Yet, everyone was very proud when she stood there at the party last Friday on the terrace with her new team, eyes shining as the 100 odd people present - clients, volunteers, visitors - gave them a rousing welcome into the DISHA family.

Madhuri loves to dance. Never have I seen someone so restless when music is played. When the time came she stood aside unsure how she should behave now that she was a supervisor. Should this onerous task somehow rob her of the joy of uninhibited movement? I ordered the five new fieldworkers on to the dance floor and then turned to Madhuri and gave the express order that they did not stop dancing until I said so. She was on the floor in a flash! Big smile. Hips unleashed.

Many on the DISHA team are older than I am, still... it was pride I felt watching this young woman shepherd her team for the last week, and then feel comfortable enough in her authority to dance with them. Madhuri has been my teacher like many of my team. She taught me that working late while possible for a young woman from Tadiwala Road, wasn't always popular with mothers-in-law who disapproved of a daughter-in-law forgetting her place. She reminded me that intelligence and wit is both universal and particular and by no means limited to a priveleged education. Madhuri taught me, like many have, that often a smile helps defuse situations when words fail miserably.

I looked around, and watched the dance take everyone away. I watched brows un-crease and forget, eyes light up, and faces contort and lips pucker in efforts to keep up with flailing limbs. Sweat began to drip drip on this hot March (August would have sounded better) night under flickering stars obscured by a city's pollution. But none of us cared. None of us gave a fuck.

Least of all Madhuri. The Dancing Queen of DISHA. We will miss her at Tadiwala Road, but we look forward to her work in Ramtekadi, and we are confident that she will make that community wake up to the dance within.

Getting Stuck In and Getting a lot Out by Zara Leslie

2007-04-02T01:22:00.000-07:00

Starting my adventures in India was a challenging thought. When I arrived the heat was intense, the flight was long and I was ready to shut my eyes and go to sleep. However, my eyes opened promptly when I saw the poverty that some endure in this country.
Working for Deep Griha has opened my eyes to some of the conditions that the people living in the slums experience. When I was put on the creche and balwadi project I was enthusiatic and ready to make a difference. However, I started to feel deflated with the progress we were making as it was very slow paced. Motivation was low and the teachers in the balwadis seemed a little reluctant to help. Over the last six weeks working on this project I have witnessed first hand what a little bit of initiative can do and the difference it can make. Our team has shown determination and created improvements within the creches and Balwadis with regards to education and hygiene. For example, children are now washing there hands before and after meals and have a more positive attitude to their surroundings. This progress makes me feel that every little bit of help makes a huge difference to these childrens lives. I am really looking forward to measuring the outcome in five months to when I arrived. Its safe to say that for the next five months and for a long time after I'm gone DGS will certainly open my eyes to the lives that others lead and how fortunate I am.

A Step Into the Unknown by Jade Macrae Henderson

2007-04-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

I was stocked up on bug spray, sun lotion and wet wipes. I thought I was well prepared for my six month stay in India. I've been here a month now and I've realised that those items are not as essential as I once thought. All you need here is an open heart and an open mind. I have experienced so many emotions ranging from happiness to anger to sadness. There was one particular day when I woke up thinking of home. By breakfast I was missing home so much that it brought a tear to my eye. On the journey to Tadiwala Road I was serioulsly contemplating that I wasn't suitable for the position and that I should go home.
As I walked into my balwadi the children looked so happy to see me and shouted 'Auntie' at me excitedly. When I sat down I took some time to observe all their smiling faces. It made me realise that I couldn't leave them. I felt I would be letting them down, as well as myself if I were to leave. This thought has motivated me to accomplish everything I can think possible to help and and to assist these children . Now whenever I feel homesick I think of how much fun I am having here, working with the children. It has made me realise that an open heart is a happy heart.

Photos from 29 March Information and Training Session, Tadiwala Rd.

2007-03-30T03:03:00.000-07:00

The new and expanded DISHA team, red saris for Tadiwala Rd. and white saris for Ramtekadi, begin the information session by exhorting the assembled crowd to join them in the fight against HIV and AIDS and the stigmatization and discrimination that accompany it.

Santosh and the DISHA team out in the Tadiwala Rd. community, educating not only their audience, but also the new members of DISHA who will soon start to work in the Ramtekadi community.
Avinash delivers information to a large and diverse crowd of all ages packed into a Tadiwala Rd. community centre.

To tackle misconceptions relating to caring for an HIV positive person, the DISHA team enacts the visit of an HIV positive person to a holy person to be cured. The prescription is a glass of water with a squeezed lemon and plentiful chilli powder. In exchange for money the holy person also cautions against going to a doctor because she or he will only be interested in the patient's money and won't be able to help with HIV.

Training Day

2007-03-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

The DISHA team for Tadiwala Rd., resplendent in their trademark red saris and HIV and AIDS awareness pins, descended on a Tadiwala Rd. neighbourhood this afternoon, accompanied by the new DISHA team to be deployed in Ramtekadi, to deliver a direct and informative presentation on HIV and AIDS to an audience of about 100 community members ranging from children to the elderly.
Upon their departure from the Deep Griha building, their procession through the streets of the Tadiwala Rd. neighbourhood created a buzz, and the curious followed to see what would ensue. With typical efficiency the DISHA team set to work plastering a community centre pavilion with HIV and AIDS awareness posters in Hindi and Marathi and hanging the banners of Wake Up Pune and DISHA.
If grassroots work in the community is the best way to reach people, this was a clinic. The varying styles used, from street play, to lecture, to humour, to serious discussion drew in passers-by and held the attention of those who sat from the beginning.
A powerful statistic is that 1 in 6 people in the world is Indian, and more powerful, 1 in 10 people in the world is an Indian under 25 years old, which means a vast number are reaching not only sexual maturity but the age of branching out on their own and making decisions for themselves. Reaching this demographic early is the key the future of the fight and stopping the spread of HIV and destroying the stigma against the disease. I was pleased to see a great number of the younger demographic present and listening to the important information that DISHA presented about educating oneself on the ways that HIV can be transmitted, about making oneself aware of what stigma and discrimination can do to people with HIV, and about the appropriate ways to reach out to those effected.
Laughter erupted when a street play portion of the presentation acted out the misconception that the disease can be cured by a holy man prescribing a heavy dose of chilli powder and lemon water. Likewise more somber presentations told of the necessity to rid ourselves of stigma and discrimination if we truly wanted to help reduce the epidemic in Pune.
In the long run the part of the day that might mean the most for the Pune community however was the training session that occurred for the new DISHA extension for Ramtekadi. A communal feedback session was the culmination of a day of great training for the new team at Ramtekadi and featured lots of productive feedback amongst the DISHA staff. Yet another step on the way forward.

The Chaos Within... within

2007-02-08T03:54:00.000-08:00

As I piled six of my team into the back seat of Mikey's Maruti 800 I was conscious of the pressure the little tires were under. We were driving back from the crematorium where face number sixteen had just been swallowed by the electric oven. The wife's frenzied wailing, the children's ( a little boy and a little girl) shock and confusion and the swiftness of disposal weighed upon all of us.

We just lost another client. Another client that should not have been lost.

He was at Sassoon hospital and required ART but the hospital refused to begin the treatment until all the tests were carried out. This included a CD4 test to check if he required ART... the hospital however had run out of CD4 test kits. Sorry, there will be a delay.

We carried out the required tests (including a CT scan) and our doctor, Dr. Madhu Oswal started him on ART on Tuesday. The CD4 count was yet to be done, the CD4 count that we would have had to pay Rs.600 for because Sassoon claimed they had no kits until Tuesday morning when Dr. Madhu called them and they admitted that the kits had 'just' arrived.

Any physician would have done the same, i.e. start him on ART... any physician who knew what HIV is and how it affects our body.

We were too late.

NACP III the comprehensive National AIDS Control Programme has promised free CD4 tests from April onwards, the Clinton Foundation is working hard for free ART for kids and there is much hope for PLHIV in our city... much hope.

Yet are these plans of mice and men deliverable in the real world? Are test kits going to dry up? Are ART shipments to Pune going to be delayed by the monsoons again? Are excuses going to be made and phone calls remain unaswered as the rings reverberate in an empty Govt. ART Centre because the luch hour has extended to two hours and the queue has extended to 80 people... people from the rural communities that know little of Pune other than how to find themselves to Sassoon Hospital, this broken beacon of hope that does its best to deliver... we hope and they hope... we all fucking hope.

And how much can we leave to hope, that appears to be so intermingled with fate that while not strictly an oxymoron it smells suspiciously like one - hopeful fate, or is that fateful hope?

The family of our client that was bundled into the rickshaw outside the crematorium chugged of in a mist of this bewilderment that hope and fate brings.

The chaos within them... within us, who are left standing by mummified bodies that are swallowed by large electric ovens will continue to wrench at us.

Today the guy who operates the machine looked at me and smiled like I was an old friend. An old friend that he meets only at funerals, and so the smile of recognition was tempered with, 'I shouldn't really smile here, but Hi anyway'... and then he gently shepherded us out as the fire went onto to do its duty. I was about to ask him how many ovens he does a day... but no words were possible and soon we were in the Maruti 800 driving home with the little tires under more pressure than they are used to... or were supposed to handle.

Maya and I spoke again of what possible ways forward exist for us with Sassoon, and how the death there for PLHIV appears to be a matter of course... questions we don't know the answer to, but questions that help us work through the chaos within... to somehow find a way forward for us all.

Maya always leaves with me from the crematorium. Both of us will have it no other way. I see fear in her eyes, and she sees fear in mine. Fear not of death but of the suffering that continues to assail PLHIV in our city of Pune.

The Chaos Within - Face Number Fifteen

2007-02-02T00:51:00.000-08:00

Face number fifteen.

That is what I thought about as I walked home last week the night Savita died.

When a Sahara care worker tragically died earlier this week I realised that we can't even begin to count the faces that affect us.

A DISHA client dies, a Sahara care worker falls in the line of duty.

The 'numbers have faces' approach that we employ has helped us stay focused on the PLHIV we know and love and serve and not get overawed by statistics... yet, we have fast realised that we cannot and must not limit ourselves to Tadiwala Road and the PLHIV that live here - they remain our focus, but IF we are well placed to address the concerns and needs of the wider PLHIV community, and of course the concerns of us in the field, then we have to move beyond our comfort zones of an urban slum community.

This is what we have done with Wake Up Pune to an extent. An attempt to reach as many people as we can, to sensitise a city that can stand together IF it chooses to... yet Wake Up Pune is not just merely a beginning, it will be hollow and empty if as a coalition of NGOs we do not further move outside and beyond ourselves and begin to address issues that are unpalatable to most of us.

Advocacy - buzz word, we all talk about it, but few know how to move forward, and even fewer believe that they have a voice to add to debates that fund conferences and waste vital resources in addressing what they are supposed to address - the need of PLHIV.

Recently we have been following debates on the need for 2nd line Antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART as most us know is crucial to the possibility of life after HIV. In the developing world or South as we are classified, ART regimens are advised only when a PLHIV's CD4 count drops to circa 200 or below. This is to ensure that PLHIV do not start too early and so create resistance to long-term ART... because 1st line ART is long-term... life-long-term!

Adherence is spoken of repeatedly and often PLHIV, especially from socio-economically deprived communities, because of often limited education, are marked as those with low adherence and the ensuing complications.

Explain this: ART (1st line) being recommended as a course of treatment for herpes simplex when the PLHIV's CD4 count is well above 200. It is prescribed akin to a course of antibiotics and will undoubtedly clear up the Herpes simplex almost immediately... but what happens when the 'course' ends?

Why are doctors ignorant? Is there any regulation at all? Whose responsibility is it to regulate and educate the medical fraternity?

One riposte maybe that doctors who are ignorant enough to prescribe ART as a course of medicine are incompetent as any doctor worth his or her salt knows better, having attended med schools worth their salt... however not all the doctors with an urban slum community practice have this saltiness... and the patients, for whom the doctor is practically divine, knows no better.

What ensues as a result is that some in the medical fraternity with less salt than others are creating a generation of PLHIV that will require 2nd line ART because their bodies will soon begin to resist 1st line ART due to this - as far as we know and hope, little practiced - course of ART that some doctors recommend.

Yes we can and will begin sensitisation programmes for the local doctors in our communities. And others. Yes we will continue to educate our PLHIV on what ART is and how it works. Yes... but grassroots NGOs can do only so much.

In the west I often here of how HIV is now something people live with and is no longer something people die of...

Face number fifteen for me last week was over one hundred faces for Sahara since DISHA tied up with them in June 2005. It is 400,000 faces in India in 2005.

Universal access to quality medication being a human right is a fight for sure... but in fighting for this, let's take a look at the issues that surround ART and more especially HIV. Understand them - understand how silence, and ignorance and fear feed stigma and discrimination, understand how they are an obstacle not just to a sick PLHIV, but are a driver for sickness to visit more PLHIV every moment... moment. And then, only then must we move forward.

We have to make something REAL happen.

Until then the faces will continue to add to our lists and walk home with us at night.

Who are the grassroots?

2007-01-19T02:59:00.000-08:00

Who are the grassroots? He asked…

We are the grass roots’ they replied in unison

This question was posed to 30 NGO’s at one of the first Wake Up Pune meetings I attended. Everyone agreed that in order to wake up Pune to the high prevalence rate of HIV in the city we all need to work collectively, pull our resources together to not only empower others but also empower ourselves, the local charities and NGO’s of Pune to make a difference.

Wake Up Pune was to be the first city wide HIV awareness campaign in Pune, reaching out to all stratums of society, not only the socio-economically disadvantaged. It was a very exciting time, jam-packed with rallies, awareness sessions, and rock concerts... However I wish Han’s question had stuck more rigorously in all of our heads…that the grassroots is not comprised of ‘others’ needing empowerment…we too are the grassroots. If we really want to make a difference, we must come together and stand united under a common aim, we must find some mutual ground that is worth fighting for…only then can we enter the battle. This will mean swallowing ones ego and sidelining personal objectives…but in the end it is worth it. It is in this way that I believe participatory NGO’s of the campaign lost sight of themselves as key stakeholders at the grassroots level of the Wake up Pune campaign.

We all have our personal agendas, I my self have several for getting involved in the campaign and working at DGS. Collectively within our individual charities and NGO’s we will have agendas. Agendas being a meeting point between motivations and pressures. Whilst motivations can unite organisation, pressure only divides. These pressures may include financial and human resources, overloading of responsibilities, deadlines and reports, in effect the mundane everyday reality of working in the social service sector. This constant friction between motivations and pressures was extremely evident in the involvement of the different organisations within the campaign.

From each organisation those involved in Wake Up Pune would have had numerous additional responsibilities, thus despite sharing the motivation they were constrained in realising it. These constraints played out in terms of the poor number of sessions conducted, questionnaires distributed and Wake up Pune events and meetings attended. We must all find some way of negotiating our individual organisational pressures with the collective motive of decreasing the level of HIV in the city.

Wake Up Pune still has a long LONG way to go, not only in terms of raising awareness about HIV, battling stigma and discrimination and prompting attitude and behaviour change, but in regards to making Wake up Pune a sustainable coalition not ‘for’ but ‘of’ the ‘grassroots’. Local NGO’s need to realise their need to be empowered, to stand united, to share resources and together challenge unequal structures of power. We must lay down the groundwork, a stable platform upon which we can fight the battle, only then do we stand to make our voices heard.

The Chaos Within - Dance with the tiger

2007-01-11T03:09:00.000-08:00

The DISHA Clients dancing on the roof top

11th January 2007.

Pune, Maharashtra , India

Still here. And if the first eleven days of 2007 are anything to go by, we will probably be here tomorrow, and the many tomorrows that follow.

Project proposals need to be written.
Annual project and team evaluation.
Meetings with community leaders to help them understand why we need a shelter home for PLHIV (the new politically correct acronym).
The DISHA Mobile Awareness Vehicle (D-MAV) needs to be painted and outfitted. Remember the A-Team van?
A Pune city youth coalition is in the pipeline.
The Church of Scotland HIV/AIDS Project coordinator visits us in Feb.
Youth centres will start in the Tadiwala road community in April.
Abstracts for ICAAP 2007 Colombo and IAS 2007 Sydney - scholarships to be applied for...
The Ramtekadi and Bibwewadi nutrition centres are about to begin...

And more, much more...

Don't forget holding the hand of those who are about to die, as they struggle for breath and look at you with confusion, even betrayal... who betrayed him... her? I don't know... and yet, what the Wake Up Pune campaign has spewed up is that there is a sense of collective betrayal when a man or woman lies in the corner of a room dying of something he doesn't need to die of, if only...

Harsh. Can we blame ourselves collectively for the death of some random who got infected with HIV and now lies dying and forgotten. So what if HIV is a chronic condition that people can now live with and no longer need to die of... Collective responsibility - Impractical, juvenile, does no fucking good. Idiot. Me.

The senselessness can be overpowering though. The 'what ifs' numb us... and then we exhale, smile, shake our collective head, and continue on this journey that will in the end consume us.

Tiger by the tail... more visceral really, the tiger looks back at us in the mirror, the tiger is in the tired smiling eyes of beneficiaries, beautiful and majestic, powerful, we can never leave, escape. If we do, life will disembowel us.

So... what do we do?

Dance with the tiger.

Why...?

2006-12-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

Maybe a question I should have asked myself is, would I have been happier not being exposed to HIV awareness in India in this way, at the grassroots?
Would it be too much of a contrast to the way of life we live in the west, despite our best notions of helping? Would it cause me to question things about the world too much? Some questioning is good, but would it cause a wholesale re-structuring of the life I had grown comfortable with?
After all, "For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief." (Eccleasiastes 1:18) .
Would this new wisdom of the battle at the grassroots create a new reality that was more dismal than my old reality, or would I find a way to help and make a difference, or would I find a group of people and a movement that was even more inspirational than my old reality?

Certainly many of my friends openly wondered what I was doing with my year in India, and why I doing it. I gave up my job, if one can call it that in the traditional sense, as a professional athlete to come to India. I knew I wanted to help and that I was in a position to help, at least in some capacity.

But, wasn't it enough for me to hope to help out in the future with an international organization like the UN, directing policy from an office in Manhattan or Geneva or somewhere, using my law degree to do...something...*something good* for *someone* else? Would that make me feel ok about myself and my efforts to help those who had not, simply because of the locations where we were born, the same opportunities that I had.

Some of this falls under the title WWLG (white western liberal guilt). A lot of it is caused by some of the western media coverage of the developing world that shows the dichotomy between *them* and *us*. It doesn't particularly emphasize the fact that we are all much more similar than that, everyone experiences joy and sadness, love and loss. The experience of life is certainly different between Beverly Hills and a slum in India though.
Would I have been happier just living a life in America with the vague knowledge in the back of my mind about the lives of those affected by HIV in India, or I am happier now that I know first hand that the images and press-releases about India can't convey the full impact of the situation?

Should my own personal happiness have anything to do with anything? Would I feel guilty being happy if I found out that maybe people suffered more greatly than I could have imagined?

While the quote from Ecclesiastes had stuck in my mind, I knew I had heard a counter to this somewhere, a quick search turned up a couple that I found especially relevant. "If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them" (Asimov) and "It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge" (Fermi).

Before I came I knew that people often died in India and elsewhere due to AIDS, TB, malaria, dysentery or another disease that commonly kills due to low levels of sanitation and poverty but (other than AIDS-which can kill anywhere independently of those things) doesn't kill in the west. What I didn't know before I came to work at this level was what it would feel like to meet children who were orphaned by these things, and consequently what it would feel like to make them smile. That is something that happens at the grassroots that doesn't happen when you donate money at Christmas from the US (although don't stop doing that).

Would I have been happier not knowing of this pain and the agony of meeting people who have been disowned by their families for contracting HIV? Sometimes you wonder how the notion of happiness in your own mind has changed afterwards. Then you see them dancing at the Sarhara Christmas Party, smiling as the unbelievably caring staff and volunteers reach out to touch them and shake their hands-actions which their families have shunned---they seem happy.

Would I have been happier not spending seven hours online staring at a computer screen researching worldwide HIV and AIDS organizations and wondering how I can possibly get myself more involved and why the fuck am I sitting down when there is so much work to do? Once you know, once you've seen the work and the passion at the grassroots, you can't tear yourself away. It isn't just with HIV awareness, all actions at the grassroots are similar. Hans said that he had similar aspirations to mine, but once you get involved at the grassroots you realize that this is the way to help, and it isn't just *someone* you are helping by directing policy or directing donations, the *someones* have names and faces and smiles. It is like a Chinese fingertrap, entrance into the realm of action at the grassroots prohibits an exit back to a previous way of thinking. Once one has seen the work that is done here it becomes impossible to go back to a state of blissful ignorance. And mind you, I didn't think I was ignorant before, I thought I was very enlightened about the world, and I was certainly very happy and felt good about directing recycling initiatives and blood drives at home, and it certainly helped many people and at the time made me feel like I was doing my part to help. But now that I've been here and seen the work that is done at the grassroots by Indians and people from around the world, my perception of helping has changed.

Helping from a distance is good but, especially in India, the grassroots is arguably more important in many ways than giving money or helping from a distance. The grassroots is not an area where tradition dictates people involve themselves. Stigma and discrimination against those from lower social levels and those infected with viruses such as HIV exist and permeate society. Deep Griha has for 31 years extended itself to work and raise awareness and increase participation at this level where many do not act despite the clear need for action.

While India makes global headlines for its advances at the highest level of IT, perhaps the advances that will actually change India the most will occur at much lower levels of the economic and social strata. After all, 80 percent (over 900, 000, 000 people--3 Times the size of the USA) of India still exists on USD 2.00 or less per day, and lives in slums and villages, and not in the glitzy concrete and steel buildings sprouting up in Bangalore and Hyderabad and Pune and the covers of magazines and books touting the new India. HIV has infected 5.7 million Indians and affected millions more. It has split families and AIDS has orphaned children. It has the potential to cut the legs out from under a population as it blitzes through the 15-49 age group with 90% of the infections falling in this demographic and more than half hitting those between 15 and 24. Tradition and fear of stigmatization keeps some silent and nourishes the epidemic to grow through a society of people who find it within themselves to invite virtual strangers to dinner, but often can't bear the sight of a loved one who through no fault of their own is HIV positive.

It is not all gloom and doom here, there is much happiness with or without this work, perhaps just as much as in the United States or Britain or Switzerland, where, despite much more favorable circumstances financially and in areas of public health, not everyone is happy. The streetlife on Tadiwala Rd is as vibrant and lively as anywhere else. The issue for the grassroots HIV awareness campaigns becomes of trying to directly help people maximize their happiness through awareness of this virus, through compassion towards those that have it, and proactive efforts to quell its spread, and in doing so, hopefully changing long held stigmas and reversing the advance of HIV into the heart of India.

The Chaos Within - A Normal Christmas

2006-12-20T03:57:00.000-08:00

Today was the Sahara Christmas party.

We took a ‘six-seater’ rickshaw to Wagholi.

Paul, Morgan, Rachel (down from Canada) and Hans in a six seater that generally packs in at least eight. We sat on our imagination.

A few weeks ago when Paul and I took a six-seater for the Sahara Diwali party we ended up discussing about how normal it was for us to take a six-seater and trundle off towards a care home on the outskirts of Pune for HIV+ people, to eat dinner with them and have a laugh.

How did this happen?

Empty question really… it just did.

It was normal… it was also normal for us to be booted from the rickshaw and forced to walk the rest of the way dodging fire crackers and rockets that came at us from every direction… or so it felt like at the time.

It was normal today to rock up at Sahara and see the clients all gathered in the forecourt, and to observe the Sahara team take some time off to play carom. We played carom too as we waited for Santa to arrive. He did. A care worker in a red Santa suit with a white beard – not a simple cotton wool job either – wig and pillow tied firmly around him to allow for the rotund Santa vibe.

We sang carols; words lost in recesses we didn’t know existed found their way back to be sung. The ‘professional’ choir from St. Patrick’s led by Kim turned up and we amateurs stood back as the guitar began to pluck and the youth sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus. They went from room to room with Saba blowing soap bubbles that little Pratam in particular enjoyed chasing.

In the first room, the men’s ward, I watched a Sahara client near the end lie there as bubbles gently landed on him and disappeared… Sam the Sahara counsellor had already informed us that this guy was about to leave us. The other clients in the room enjoyed the music, the touch, the life that continued.

Outside in the forecourt we danced. We couldn’t help ourselves. As soon as Sanjay, one of my HIV+ clients who is partially paralysed struggled to his feet and began to move I was there with him, as was the rest of us dancing all afternoon.

It was normal.

Tomorrow evening is the DISHA Christmas party.

There will be more dancing as over 60 DISHA clients and their families come together to eat pizza and have fun. The kids in particular enjoy the music, but as our DISHA gathering have shown almost all of us present dance.

It is primeval na…

There will be no host of angels rejoicing at the birth of life… or will there be?

That is not an empty question… the angels will be there, and they will dance like they have danced before... all 60 something of them with their cherubs in tow.

It will be a normal Christmas.

Perspective - From Advocacy to Grassroots

2006-12-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

Friday. 15th December. Open Air Avenue, Pach Building Area, Tadiwala Road Community, Pune.

Celebration of Life

Hans Billimoria, taking the stage, asking the people of Tadiwala to wake up to HIV/AIDS; Malik and the guys from Sahara Aalhad grooving away to ‘Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai; Mike Marshall, talking in faltering Hindi, about collective responsibility and embracing PLWHA; A beautiful woman draped in a purple sari dancing gracefully to ‘Kajrare Kajrare’ while the crowd cheers on; testimonies of courage and hope.

A truly memorable evening came to an end.

Thoughts played around in my mind as I headed back home.

I remembered when I first met Hans, about three weeks ago, he had told me that ‘If you really want to work, work at the grassroots.’ Now I know what he was talking about.

Volunteering on the ‘Wake Up Pune’ Campaign, I have seen a new facet of India’s fight against HIV/AIDS.

For me, the spotlight has shifted from Roundtable Breakfast Events to PuranPoli Dinners at Laxmi Tai’s home in Tadiwala Vasti; from uninspiring speeches by MPs on Targeted Interventions in the country to heart-wrenching testimonies of HIV + people; from big words of false reassurances by the decision makers to small acts of acceptance and compassion by the common man.

40 lakh AIDS deaths was a mere statistic. Now, the death of even one AIDS patient is a tragedy, like the death of a loved one.

‘Transgender’ was just another ‘High-Risk Group’. Now it stands for people whose lives, filled with aspirations, pain, hope and dreams, are as real as yours and mine.

‘Stigma and Discrimination’ were ‘Key Words’ in any advocacy plan for PLWHA. Now I understand the intensity of their impact on lives of PLWHA. These two are more dangerous than HIV itself, for as I discovered, HIV doesn’t kill. ‘Stigma and Discrimination’ does.

Three weeks ago, HIV/AIDS was just one of the many socio-economic problems/public health challenges faced by India. Now HIV is about ME. It is about YOU. It is about US. And neither the govt. nor the NGOs alone, but every one of us has to do something about it.

HIV is REAL. HIV is HERE. And HIV is NOW.
No more Promises. Let our actions Speak.

-- Himakshi Piplani, Volunteer

The Chaos Within - And her eyes stayed shut

2006-12-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

I went to see Jyoti yesterday.

With the Wake Up Pune campaign I have not had the chance to speak with her or any of the other clients at Sahara Aalhad Care Home. The last time I saw Jyoti was when they were about to insert a nasal feeding tube about three weeks ago because she was not eating. She refused the tube and despite all our arguments to convince her otherwise she remained adamant. Even when Maya and I tried to speak to her of other things to take her mind of the impending tube she knew...

"Don't try to butter me up. I do not want the tube."

Finally we had to leave because our presence was not helping and even as she clutched our hands in goodbye and I kissed her forehead her eyes said, 'don't let them do this to me.'

They had to. Mike subsequently made a deal with her and in a few days the tube was out and she was eating again, but I could sense the betrayal in her eyes as I walked out of the women's ward the last time...

She was a fighter, the ice cream - mango - started flowing down her throat again, and she ate, ate well to make sure that she would not suffer the ignominy of the tube again, and also what in her mind the tube meant - the beginning of the end.

Last weekend Mikey told me that Jyoti's CD4 count had dropped to 19. I was devastated. This was not good news. This meant she was vulnerable and open to all those opportunistic infections that floated around Sahara in search of a host.

Opportunistic infections remind me of Christ's struggle with the demonised version of Satan in the wilderness. After Satan tempted Christ three times Luke's gospel writes that Satan left Christ for a more 'opportunistic time' - possibly when he was on the cross robbed of purpose...

Point?

The opportunistic infections, especially TB wait and pounce and kill anyone as weak as Jyoti was with a CD4 count of 19.

I left Tadiwala Road around 12.30 yesterday. On the way to Sahara, Ryan, a volunteer from the US, called me up and said he thought that I should really come in and see Jyoti. I said 'on my way.' My mind was trying to figure out where I could buy her a cup of Mango ice cream.

Around one 0'clock I arrived in Wagholi and had to stop off to deal with another extremely pressing matter that involves people that we all love and have admired. What I planned to take an hour took almost three.

I told Mikey that I would be at Sahara by two, and at two forty he called me up -

"Get your arse here now, I am suddenly losing Jyoti."

How? Why? What about the Mango ice cream?

When I turned into the lane five minutes later I saw Mikey and Malik standing outside the gate waiting for me. Somehow I knew that I had just saved ten rupees on a cup of Mango ice cream.

I stopped and inquired with that nod of the head and raised eyebrows that we all inquire with from a distance and they both replied with a shake of the head... it stopped me momentarily in my tracks before I walked on and passed them into Sahara and into the women's ward. The green screen was up around her bed in the corner. I walked around it. And there she was. I pulled back the blanket that covered her and Jyoti's eyes were still partially open.

As I stood there with my hand on her chest and kissed her forehead that one last time, a Sahara care worker came and placed two five rupee on her eyes to weigh them down. It was like the passing of a Greek hero into the afterlife.

She was our hero.

This woman stood up in front of almost three thousand people last year in Tadiwala Road on World AIDS Day - Celebration of Life - and declared that she was HIV+ and asked her community to accept her. She did this knowing that her uncle threatened her with no support if she went through with this... something she did not tell us until after Celebration of Life was over.

This woman stood up in front of the community leaders of Tadiwala Road in January and convicted them with her experiences of stigma and discrimination.

This woman walked with me into colleges around Pune and spoke to students of her struggle.

She was rail thin, and she was probably everything that HIV+ people are supposed to look like... but then she spoke with her crooked smile and she was eloquent.

Jyoti taught me that death was not something to fear. She called it her second death, the physical end; her first death was when her family rejected her after she was known to be HIV+.

It is so easy to romanticise this woman. She let nothing stop her. Nothing. She worked hard. She wanted no charity.

When they brought her body out to wrap in white I helped. I felt empty...

Wake Up Pune is about Jyoti and those like her. This same morning I was at a school session speaking about how HIV+ people can live 'positive' and productive lives, and that India has the highest death rate in the world (400, 000 last year according to UNAIDS) only because people are afraid of HIV; those who stigmatise and those who are stigmatised against.

Ignorance, Fear, Stigma, Discrimination... silence. Our stigma chakra.

She was silent and her eyes stayed shut.

Wake Up Pune, but Jyoti was not about to wake up, and these thoughts were all that kept running through my head...

Fuck... just exacerbated as I write because Ajay the rickshaw driver who drives us regularly to Sahara walked in and asked me how the funeral was... and then he asked me if I spoke with her, I said no I arrived just after she died...

"You should have spoken to her, she wanted to speak with you."

I know. I wanted her to eat Mango ice cream with me. I wanted her to smile her crooked smile. I wanted to hear her berate me for not coming to see her for so long.

My hands were wet with her release as we lifted her shrouded body back on to the table. Dead bodies leak remember. And Ryan and I drove with her to the crematorium.

We took almost two hours to get there with the traffic and the Indian bureaucracy playing their roles and finally laid her on a bed of dried cow dung cakes.

The wailing began. They unfurled that sari that I have now seen unfurled too many times over my clients, my friends, and laid it on top of her. Then they opened her shroud so that the family could have one last look at her... and her eyes stayed shut. The wailing intensified.

The men piled cow dung cakes high around her and began to chant. She was a Buddhist. I grew up next to a Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka. I chanted with them.

'Buddhang Saranang Gachchami'

The flames danced brightly. There was little or no smoke. I stood there with my team in the growing heat of the flames and said thank you to Jyoti. Tears fell. A hand reached out and placed itself on my right shoulder. I don't know whose it was. We stood there and watched her last dance.

And her eyes stayed shut till the end.

Goodbye Jyoti.

You are now a part of me.

The Chaos Within - A togetherness

2006-11-19T00:36:00.000-08:00

Its Sunday afternoon.

The DISHA Cricket Challenge Trophy 2006 just ended. The emotionally charged final resulted in the fielding side walking off the pitch when the umpire refused to give the batsman out because he determined that the catcher did not have control over the ball.

Bringing the game into disrepute? You should have seen the outfield. The dives belied the hardness and debris of the Railway grounds. It is also a popular venue for Tadiwala Road's Injecting Drug users (we cleaned up as best we could)... not ideal for a match that promotes HIV knowledge, attitude and skills.

We work in an environment that is can be harsh... but cricket still gets played. HIV prevention can still be effective, and it is vital. Most of the kids that played the tournament from the different youth mandals (groups) in the community often visit sex workers. This is both frowned upon but also accepted: boys will be boys.

Boys will be boys who contract HIV... Avinash's sessions between the innings of every game are short but do not hold back on the realities of HIV in Pune, and also on how 'boys' can and must protect themselves.

The pseudo-conservative culture of Tadiwala Road and communities like it is an obstacle not just to HIV prevention skills but also to attitudes towards HIV+ people. Attitudes towards people who become HIV+ after visiting sex workers without taking the necessary precautions. Boys who will be boys ostracised from the youth mandal because their rights of passage or initiation went horribly well. They had sex. They contracted HIV.

We have to create a culture of young people that are less accepting of risky behaviour in their peers and also themselves. For this education, and sustained education, in different settings, is required. This is what the DISHA Cricket Challenge Trophy tries to do. And I can't help be proud of my team for doing this so well.

I am also fucking proud of Jyoti. She has battled hard. She is eating again, and has refused to give in... she has the will remember... and it people like her that give us the will to continue what we do... motivate us to work into the night, to somehow make a difference to the lives of those who live with HIV, and also to try and arrest the spread of HIV in this city.

The Wake Up Pune campaign is bringing professionals together; NGOs, doctors, social workers, counsellors, HIV+ speakers... yet, Jyoti's act of defiance, and it is fucking defiance - I will not go quietly into the night! - brings us together too. Often more effectively than any campaign.

It is a togetherness that cannot be explained. A togetherness that takes hold of us deep inside and does not allow for despair to set in. A togetherness that is vital.

The Chaos Within - Jyoti

2006-11-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

Jyoti had a rough night.

This afternoon when I went to visit her she lay in her bed stared at me and refused to speak for almost 20 minutes.

According to Sam who was on night duty Jyoti had sat up all night and stared at the wall. She then had an episode. She was emotionally unstable. A combination of shock and denial.

Last night all she kept muttering was:

"I am ok. I am healthy. My children are fine."

It was a long night for her. It was a long night for Sam. He finally got her to sleep.

When Jyoti spoke to me after her silence her first words were, "I am healthier than you are."
This was the first thought in her mind.

Jyoti was always thin, but in the weirdest way with the further weight loss she looks both 16 and 80. When she smiled it was a disturbing parody of a skull. An image out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Skin stretched taut over bone.

I sat with her almost all afternoon. She cannot keep anything down. As soon as we arrived we discovered that she had just vomited out her lunch. She had eaten very little. She held on to me, and to Maya, and would not let us leave her side. Her breathing quickened every time we did.

I love Jyoti. She is strong and single minded. As I wrote in my blog after World AIDS Day in 2005 Jyoti spoke at the Celebration of Life event in Tadiwala Road despite knowing that she was going to be disowned by her uncle for revealing her HIV+ status to the community.

She has since spoken to local community leaders and colleges with me, educating both young and old about how HIV is not an end to life...

This is hard.

She now lies on her back even as I write with a needle stuck into her painfully fragile arm with the drip drip drip feeding her what she needs to survive.

I was with her when they put in the drip. My hands held her face as her eyes looked distantly into mine... she was not with us. I watched the blood fill the tube as they stuck in the needle and as a couple of drops escaped I wondered at how fucked up this virus is. That blood contained her end. Those drops potentially carried the difficult life of HIV for someone.

There is life after HIV and I see it every day around me, but we cannot deny that HIV has brought death to millions and... Jyoti... she will fight. I know she will. And I know she has the will.

She has the will.

I promised to return to see her tomorrow. I promised to bring her Mango ice cream. She vomited out half a cup of vanila that we fed her just before we left.

Maya said she felt afraid when she saw how Jyoti had deteriorated after the death of her friend, despite the hands on support of the Sahara team. I felt afraid too. She is sick. Her lymph nodes are swollen. She is in pain. But she has also somehow distanced herself for now.

I hope she chooses to return.

The Chaos Within - The taste of the crunch

2006-11-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

Back from Lanka. Been back a week actually. I came back early because I couldn't sit in Sri Lanka and miss the lead-up to Wake Up Pune. Idiot. I should have enjoyed sitting at my dad's just outside Kandy with the sound of the river buzzing in my ears and got some reports done.

The reports are getting done but only amidst the frenzied activity of the campaign... its crunch time... crunch time... we can almost hear the crunch, feel it, smell it, taste it...

The team of Deep Griha volunteers has been outstanding, and even as I write this the clock is about to tick tock 8, and Coen from the Netherlands is working on posters and fliers for the Sahara band from Delhi who are doing three gigs in the city. The office is deserted. It’s just the both of us.

It is far from peaceful however because a bunch of kids in the community have found a secret cache of fireworks left over from Diwali... fireworks, a loose term for gunpowder, and there is noise. A lot of noise. It has been going on all evening. Paul threatened to go and piss on them... the fireworks that is, not the kids. I think. Anyway... Paul, Jenny, Sam and Coen have been working overtime, and so has Avinash.

Last night I accompanied five models for the Wake Up Pune photo shoot. Four of those models are HIV+ and the other was HIV Positive too. The studio was in a part of Pune we do not venture into often and when we got there was another photo shoot going on with rather glamorous young women all painted and preened and the six of us had a giggle at how scruffy we looked. Our models from Project Concern International, the HIV+ network in Pune and DISHA enjoyed themselves. They were as professional as anyone could ask for, and you would have thought they had done this all their life.

What is it in us that transforms us in front of a camera? The need to look our best for possible posterity? Pride? Self image? Vanity? No… as I watched them pose very seriously and listen to the directions of the photographer I could not say it was any of these. It was something else.

I don't know what that something was... but whatever it was, it was there in those five very special people who agreed to have their faces plastered all over Pune in the poster and billboard campaign. They risk stigma and discrimination in this city as a result but were still willing to come forward to educate people on how normal - I hate the word - HIV+ people can look. These are not sick, desperate, dying individuals that HIV is so often associated with our city.

But the sick and the dying and the desperate exist. My client Jyoti is currently at the Sahara Care Home, and her healing is slow, her gorgeous friend who was in the bed next to her died last week, the same woman that I sat with and shared dinner with on the night before Diwali. This has affected Jyoti, naturally, and her recovery both physically and emotionally will now take longer.

Raju Khirade and his family were kicked out of their house by his father, and were threatened with the streets before we finally found them respite at Sahara today. They were desperate, and desperation transforms people. There case is being put before the Human Rights Commission but the process is slow. His kids are oblivious to all but their mother’s tears. They appear to accept that the family is not wanted, and their smiles are ever at the ready for anyone who cares to look their way. Courage even if they do not consciously know what courage is.

Last evening Avinash came to me with the news that one of our HIV+ clients is working as a female sex worker in Tadiwala Road. This does not mean she is desperate, and for us the main issue is that she is protecting herself from repeat infection and her clients from HIV. There can be no moralising. My friends with the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers will echo this. “Don’t give us sewing machines give us human rights” remember. It is however a concern, especially since she is not willing to discuss it with us, and it will take a while for us to engage with her and let her know we are on her side without scaring her off. But we have to do it. And soon!

That taste of the 'crunch' fills our senses. It pushes at us and we push back. It is what we do best.

Pied Piper of Tadewalla Road

2006-10-27T05:13:00.000-07:00

On the eve of Diwali I had organised a children’s party for twenty of our school drop outs at Extentia’s office. The aim was for Extentia volunteers to interact with the kids and give them some fun for Diwali. Really nice idea. In the week the School Drop Outs Project Leader had assured me that he would get me twenty children, an ambulance (that’s the form of transport we use here at DGS! Kind of like the Scooby doo van!) And a driver. I get to DGS on Friday at 4.30. No sign of any kids. Call Hans in a small panic. He comes down. Still no children. I envisage the Extentia staff hovering over paper plates, party games and the Diyas that will be painted, waiting for phantom children to turn up. The party that never was. Five O’colck passes. Still no school drops outs. Kinda looks like they just dropped out of the whole thing.

I can see steam starting to seep out of Hans’ as we wait on the steps of DGS. I can feel my own temper being to bubble. Hans asks the Project Leader what’s going on. He informs us that its Diwali so he didn’t think it was worth bothering to ask anyone. Again I picture the Extentia staff hosting a phantom party. This is an organisation we are trying to build ties with, so not delivering children to a party they had organised would leave us red faced and embarrassed. Project Leader didn’t really seem to give a damn. This is the frustration of internal politics in an NGO. This is a job to some people, rather than a passion. Some people just cannot see the bigger picture. They don’t realise the impact that this could have on what we are trying to achieve organisation wise. Sometimes you are just banging your head (when you wish it was theirs!) against a monolithic unmoving wall. If he couldn’t sort it out, he should have just said. Instead of leaving us seething on a step at 4.45 on a baking Friday afternoon.

The steam came out of Hans ears at this point…. So we became the Pied Pipers of Tadwalla Road. If some people can’t be arsed to get 20 kids to attend a fun party, then we certainly could. The DISHA team as always where there to save the day. Frantic calls where made… ones that an outsider would be intrigued by “ I need you to get me twenty children and I need them twenty minutes ago… chalo”!!

Ranu, one of the saviours, is cooking her children some Diwali treats in her home when we call. Frying pakoras over her stove. Kids playing outside. The fact she drops everything in a minute and brings the kids and her pakoras within ten minutes demonstrates a) her utmost respect for Hans and b) her dedication to DGS. If only everyone could be like her. Mira, another saviour, answers the SOS in jaw dropping fashion. In a panic we beg her to bring her kids and a few others in ten minutes. Like Ranu she is preparing for what is the equivalent of Christmas day… cooking, getting the best clothes ready, making rangoli outside her house. That doesn’t matter. Five minutes letter a long line of children all holding hands slowly drop into the centre. All sent by Mira. There are 42 in total. Yes its Diwali, yes it’s a holiday, but that doesn’t stop the dedicated DISHA staff delivering on our promise to Extentia. And delivering in the form of 42 kids!!!

Now we all have to fit into the Scooby van!! Me and 42 kids age 7-15. Them speaking Marathi, me English! There isn’t room for Hans and Ranu, they assure me they will be along soon! We squeeze in, 44 people in a 10 seater van.

We get to Extentia only thirty minutes late. Its no point trying to hide the fact we have 42 kids when we should have 20… the more the merrier hey? Well 42 is better than a big fat 0.

The party is great… Extentia really know how to give the kids a great time. First games are played, then Diyas (Diwali candles) are painted, then dancing, food, then the piste de resistance – Fireworks! At first the kids are shy, they are not used to this kind of environment. I (as a DGS face), have to show them all the toilet, as they won’t go on their own. Then as the music blares out and the fireworks sparkle the Indian urge to dance quells all shyness. The shoulder wiggling and hand jiggling is a site to behold on a roof full of candles on a starry night. This sense of togetherness and momentary dissolving of all boundaries between those that have and those that have not, is what Diwali is all about. A festival of lightness.

The Chaos Within - Outside with the chappals

2006-10-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

I leave for Sri Lanka today to renew my visa.

As I have done so many times before, I leave DISHA with Avinash at the helm. Safe hands.

This journey is not just about a visa. It is about a rediscovery of will. Strength. Laughter and tears. My first steps. They need to be taken again. And again. The eternal return of the first steps. Its the same with DISHA. The Wake Up Pune campaign and Celebration of Life event on the 1st of December will end. Then, the first steps need to be taken of our new beginning. We did this last year. We have to do it again.

New beginnings can be tiring. It would be easy to continue that which is not necessarily old. The beginning too, is not necessarily new, or fresh, just... a reaffirmation of why we are here, and what we hope to acheive.

You can see Mikey do this at Sahara Aalhad. In the couple of weeks almost that he has been here the centre feels him. Not just the Aalhad team and the clients, the very centre, the walls, the floor, the door, the murals. It is a reaffirmation of what Aalhad wills itself towards. It is not about one man. Yet, sometimes one man or woman is required to make it not about one man or woman. Sometimes one man or woman moves us from the I to the WE.

About a week ago at the Aalhad office we were discussing the problems we face as NGOs, both internally and within the larger NGO network.

Subharna came up with a concept for a sign: "Check your ego at the door."

Brilliant! What was the Marathi translation? The literal translation sounded tame. Finally Salim pipes up: "Leave your ego with the slippers." See literal translations do not work. But basically, the Indian culture is to remove footwear befor entering a house of office, and so, the ego stays outside with the chappals!

To reaffirm our passion and commitment and will... and all else it takes for us to do what we do... egos have to stay outside with the chappals. And sometimes... so do we... until we learn. Until we reaffirm. Until we are ready to take those first steps. Again. Fuck. Again.

The Chaos Within - Mask of Stigma

2006-10-20T05:47:00.000-07:00

I know that my blog posts are not as regular as they used to be. The Wake Up Pune campaign is taking a lot of time, and of course everything else that DISHA is trying to accomplish. Celebration of Life 2006 is coming around again and the DISHA Cricket Challenge Trophy games begin in early November. This year we have approached a corporate Extentia to support us and we await confirmation with fingers and toes and all else that can be crossed.

Mike Marshal has finally arrived at Sahara Aalhad with the intention of upgrading it to as near as he can get to hospital standards with the limited budget he has. Mike brings with him a wealth of experience and for someone like me who is green in this field Mikey being here is huge! He echoes everything we want to accomplish in this city, and he brings with him the authority of having worked all over India from Naga Land to Hyderabad. I have much to learn from this man. Much.

On Friday last Mikey arrived just as the inaugural DISHA party was winding down on the terrace. This party was for the 'DISHA family' as Avinash calls us all. Clients and team and everyone else included. We had so much fun. We danced and danced and then danced some more. The orchestra from the community that we paid Rs.800 for consisted of a drum, a couple of singers and a tambourine. It was fantastic. This was all we needed. Avinash and Meera and Laxmi joined in with guest vocals and we were off! Everyone was dressed in his or her best. And anyone who wants a window into life after HIV, come join us on the second Friday of every month on the Deep Griha terrace at Tadiwala Road.

We keep saying during our education and awareness sessions that HIV is not an end to life. And we say it with the conviction that our HIV+ clients have given us. The conviction that our HIV+ team members have given us.

I was overcome that night. Again. Why has HIV become what it is? What have we done to HIV that makes people reject daughters and stone neighbours? Why are we so afraid of HIV+ people?

Multiple answers. I know. Multiple answers. Yet... none of these multiple answers answer the questions.

When we say stigma kills we mean it. We've seen it. We've touched it. And if we are not careful it will bite us too. It will infect us.

Someone I have worked with for almost two years suddenly turned around and told me that she is afraid of the stigma she 'might' face from my team if she tests herself for HIV. Her fear was very real to her. And although I do not and cannot believe that anyone on my team will stigmatize her, the fear in her eyes forced me to confront this very fact. And I could not say for sure that yes, no one on my team will reject you. This realization, if you like... it sapped me of all my strength. We have to be so careful, even if we are in this field. Even if we claim to be the adversaries of stigma and discrimination. It is insidious. And my friend who worked me for two years fears it. It maybe a creation within her, this fear, yet, it is there, and it stems from her intimate knowledge of how we work.

It is human. The fear of stigma... and the stigma. When I think back to Saraswathi and all she went through, when I think of Anita, Ashok, Ratnadeep, Usha, Renu, Prakash, all the clients that both DISHA and Sahara have lost, our human condition is. It just is. Maya sobbed for the first time on Thursday. She sobbed uncontrollably. The matter was trivial. Inconsequential. It brought forth a flood. As I held her... her very real strength seemed a facade. My strength is a facade too. It is human. Person comes from persona... mask. And the mask of stigma is easily worn.

We just might not know that we are wearing it.

The Chaos Within - A City is its people

2006-10-06T01:30:00.000-07:00

At the last Wake Up Pune meeting we discussed what our USP is...

Issues of HIV transmission, stigma and discrimination, access to HIV related services, support for people living with HIV - all these are included in our the campaign, but what makes our campaign different?

Issues of transmission and stigma and discrimination have been dealt with before. Access to quality testing and support services is high on the agenda of many organisations and campaigns have been conducted in the city. So what is it, is it just the scale of what this campaign is trying to achieve?

As Rajesh Joshi - a film maker working with us on the campaign -said when we spoke about the possible lack of donor support, we should still go ahead nonetheless, and ensure that we do not dilute Wake Up Pune to Wake Up Bhawanipeth! I.e. Reduce the campaign to just a part of this large city.

So if we are trying to wake Pune up, is this enough, or do we have another USP that is linked?

Possible answers:

1) It is the first time that HIV agencies in the city have attempted to 'work together' for a Pune wide campaign.

2) It is the first time that a Pune wide campaign has been attempted.

3) Simply, we are trying to wake Pune up to the issue of HIV that is largely ignored.

The first possibility focuses on the cooperation of agencies.

The second focuses on an inaugural event... yes, we will need more than just one Wake up Pune campaign.

The third is by far the closest... but then, how do we make Pune aware that this is about them? It is not about the scale of the campaign, it is not about the myriad of agencies that run the campaign, but rather, that it is about the city! Its people!

That's where we discussed numbers. And the discussion focused on the fascinating reactions we as human beings have to numbers...

Let's be honest, we are trying to 'sell' Pune the idea that HIV is an issue in our city, and that it needs to be addressed rather than be ignored, and numbers can help us achieve this.

So how many are infected in the city?

As this blog has reported in the past, the NACO stat from 2004 is 1.8%... this is double the national average, this is almost double the epidemic status mark set by WHO which is 1% of any population.

This makes it approximately 100,000 people depending on which census figure we follow.

These numbers are more than just 'significant' for us in the field…

So what do we do?

Do we say 1.8%... would this reassure you or scare you? (Thanks Paul)

Do we say 100,000 people... can you get your head around 100,000 people?

India has a prevalence rate of 0.9%. We are technically a low prevalence country! We have not reached epidemic status!

India also has an estimated 5.7 Million people living with HIV, the highest in the world according to the UNAIDS June 2006 report.

Another number that is interesting is that only as little as 8-10% are said to know their status. This leaves a mammoth 90% ignorant of their status and how to protect themselves and those around them.

We can play the numbers game all day and finally would we have made a difference? Does it depend on how we play it? Should we play it at all?

If we don't, i.e. use a number from a credible source - what is a credible source? NACO contests the UNAIDS figures - can we engage with Pune?

The bottom line is that Pune needs to know the extent of HIV in the city.

But how do we do this without diluting the issue?

We need help, so if anyone reading this blog has any ideas about how to use the number let us know.

But more than the number, I think the focus on the people of Pune is fantastic, and if our campaign is run right, then... Pune will begin the change we hope for.

Our tag line for Wake Up Pune is "You can make a difference."

It's simple really:

You can make a difference from protecting yourself from contracting HIV... this may involve behavioral changes, it may not.

You can make a difference by treating HIV+ people with the dignity they deserve, by not judging them, by supporting them, if you are in a position to support them... this may involve a change in attitude, it may not.

Obviously the campaign will have posters, hoardings, leaflets, street plays, multiple sessions across the city with all sectors from corporate organizations to slums, the Race Against AIDS marathon and much more to reinforce our key messages... but at then end of it all, when we do the post campaign evaluation - the pre and post campaign evaluations deserve a blog of their own... mammoth task! - we want to know whether we have actually connected with the city... whether the city is actually willing to wake up and make a difference.

A city is its people.

Deep Griha Blog

2006-09-29T03:22:00.000-07:00

Deep Griha Blog
A Taste of Deep Griha

Originally intending to stay at least a month, I found that I had to cut my stay in Pune down to two weeks – result? A whirlwind ride through numerous branches of Deep Griha Society, the opportunity to dip my finger into several pies of plenty, all spiced with the masala of getting to know the people I was living with as far as is possible in the space of 14 days.

Arrived in Pune after on a bus from Aurangabad – eerily reminiscent of the description of such journeys provided in the Volunteer handbook, complete with continuous, loud Bollywood tunes; driver plus gang cracking dirty jokes; additionally an elderly woman regaling us with family gossip tales. Loved it! Made sure to bolster my own confidence immediately by attempting to haggle rickshaw drivers down . . . from 70 to 65 rupees. Really giving those pennies the best looking-after of their lives. Oh dear.

I reached Tatya Tope in a state of absolute confusion – (my wondrous rikwallah had turned out to be a bit of a novice) – dusty and somewhat frazzled, to the most welcoming reception committee I’ve ever experienced. Thank you to the Independents, DIA and the Linklets for making me feel right at home on my first day! The Ladies of the House are surrogate aunties, looking after my every wish; passing on cooking tips, religious views and love advice a-plenty.

Wandered around the local area to get familiar with the surroundings and was rewarded with a feast for the senses; the sights – pigs and cows vying with Mercs, buses and pedestrians on the main highway, fruit of every possible colour, shape and texture, and smells I didn’t know existed . . . overwhelming but exciting. I’m still, after a month and a half in India, finding the dichotomy between modern and traditional life; rich and poor people here tricky to get my head around. Don’t know if you ever really can, or whether you have to dissociate from one side completely. Ho hum philosophy.

So on to the juicy stuff – actual work at Deep Griha. Being paranoid that I’d be of no use whatsoever with my truncated trip, I tried to get in on what was going on as soon as I stepped in, with the result that I actually was able to complete quite a few odds and ends during my time. The Tadiwala Road slum area is barely recognisable as a slum any more; Deep Griha has been so successful here. On a busy shopping street leading into avenues and alleyways of residential housing means, the Tadiwala office is a truly lively place to work in. Kids were very friendly, and very happy to meet and greet; the fulltime staff were generous to the nth degree with their time and help! All in all a really great taster course about what Deep Griha does.

So what was I doing? I spent my weekdays in the Tadiwala Road Family Centre, assisting with report writing, research and proposal drafting; occasionally shunting over to the Ramtekedi slum area for meetings with the staff, to observe some of their work with the residents there. Also managed to cram in observing a Wake Up Pune! meeting – never to be forgotten - Dr J is an Absolute Gem.

The DISHA ladies took me into their circle; several luncheon hours were spent most profitably, exchanging recipes and tiffin-box contents, alongside trying to pick up some Marati words. Incredibly garbled English, Hindi and Marati conversations were the outcome, but I think we all had fun – well, I did anyway. Not too successful on the language front, but the recipes will be attempted asap. My family’s definitely in for . . . something, dunno quite how it’ll turn out.

Tried to spend some time with kiddies in the crèche and balwadi; they seemed amused, if slightly perplexed, by my rendering of the two nursery rhymes I vaguely remember: ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and ‘Little Miss Muffet’. But they listened with good grace, and smiled a lot, and ‘Round and Round the Garden …’ went down a bit too well for my liking. Hmm.

Free-time – a surprising amount of this was available! So we managed to fit in numerous shopping expeditions, various exploratory ambles, the Agakhan Palace, a couple of nightclubs, and regular ice-creams. Could have been even more had I not succumbed to the Lethargy Lurgie. All of which was extremely educational and interesting yadda yadda, more to the point I had FUN!

So to sum up – I don’t reckon I’ve fully absorbed or processed my experience at Deep Griha yet, but I do know that I’ve learnt a lot during my packed, albeit brief stay. Hope to come back next year –

Volunteer, London

The Chaos Within - More than protein pills

2006-09-13T03:07:00.000-07:00

It’s been almost a month weeks since I got back from the conference in Canada.

Almost a month of frenzied activity.

Wake Up Pune meetings, Share The Vision programmes, Be HIV Positive sessions, inquiries in to stigma and discrimination at City of Child, T-shirt campaign kick off, MSM gathering, help plan an HIV/IDU conference and of course those ubiquitous reports that do not write themselves!

I finished my August report, albeit horribly late, and decided that I will celebrate with a blog! There is so much to write about that I have this ' funny feeling' - I love funny feelings... they help me focus like nothing else does - that I will end up writing about nothing. Have I just contradicted myself? Surely I have? Let’s see…

Wake Up Pune: This initiative has been postponed for November. Dr. Jasmine of Project Concern International suggested the postponement and I agreed. We need to plan it and ensure that we know what kind of impact it has made. For this we require a scientific pre and post programme survey. Have I said this all before? I am still in report mode.

Evidence base! This is crucial if we are to prove that the targeted intervention programmes we run are effective. Wake Up Pune is potentially huge, and to let it go by - effort, funds, time, - without evaluating its impact is unforgivable. The National AIDS Research Institute has agreed to help us. Brilliant!

Share The Vision: Avinash has done a fantastic job of running the Share The Vision programmes in Tadiwala Road. The vision is a model community in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Jane Zhu's research on stigmatizing attitudes and behaviour has shown us that we are miles away from realising this vision, and that the sharing of it, has had little or no success. I'd like to think different of course, and the targeted sample in Jane's study were not the groups we have made most headway with... but still, the community does not consist merely of the groups that we make headway with... as this blog goes, you will find that the groups we have ignored thus far are crucial in our bid for a model community.

Poster campaigns especially designed for the community is one idea we have come up with, and a local radio network! Sounds bizarre eh? Fuck... let's see what we can do. If we have a Deep Griha local station for Tadiwala Road and of course other communities it would be a fantastic way of disseminating information, be it about HIV or anything else?

The power of radio has often been spoken of, and a radio station dedicated to local development issues sounds like a plan... albeit a logistical nightmare when we actually explore the implementation of such a project! Is it even legal? Initial inquiries suggest there is no legislation in place for a local radio station. But, again, let’s see…

The Be HIV Positive sessions are now strengthened with the 'positive' t-shirt campaign which has the three point positive programme on the back:

Positive about educating yourself and others on HIV
Positive about raising awareness in your wider community
Positive about reaching out to those living with affected by HIV

Navin from Sahara Delhi was here for the launch. He spoke passionately about being HIV Positive and put a face to the often abstract circumstances of stigma and discrimination that we fight against. The MSM (men who have sex with men) gathering that took place on Sunday the 10th of September actually deserves a blog of its own. Fuck. What a ride, and what a dance! They danced from the time they arrived until it was time to go home again. The energy and enthusiasm was fantastic. It rubbed of on us too of course and we all danced that day in our own way. The morning saw us on a bus with the DISHA team up front and the guys at the back. The journey home had us all together. Singing, dancing, laughing.

Last Friday Siddhi, one of the dancers, and I went out to dinner. A date! We talked a long time about the MSM community in Pune, about HIV risk perception etc, and of course about the choices one makes with regard to sexuality. It was a wonderfully open discussion, and we followed up dinner at La Dolce Vita with a drink at Lush, a local night club. When we started to dance I realised that Pune may still not be a place where two guys - especially one who looks as attractive as Siddhi; he was in a pair of white tight trousers and a sequined white west, wore a nose stud and hoop earrings, and had long copper tinted hair down to his shoulders - can go out an dance together without attracting attention. I had fun just looking at the expressions that followed our every move. And the boy can move.

The HIV/IDU conference was on Thursday. The HIV agencies and narcotics agencies in Pune had thus far claimed that there were NO Injecting Drug Users in Pune. Sounds naive. And the conference, which was held at Deep Griha, showed us how naive this claim is. In just over a month, the Mukti - Sangan team identified approximately 100 IDUs in the city through a rapid survey. This will form the basis for a Pune Action Plan later this month.

The MSM community and IDU community are largely ignored by agencies working within an urban slum community. They are marginalised by attitudes and behaviour. And some in the MSM and IDU communities admit that the attitudes and behaviour that marginalise them are often their own.

There are social drivers here that need to be examined. And as always nothing is black and white. Yet, even though working amongst the MSM and IDU communities is not going to be easy, is it something that agencies like Deep Griha should shy away from? DISHA will not. A model community is inclusive. A model community that ignores the MSM or IDU community has failed as a model.

We have much to learn, and much of that learning will not come from a conference, but rather from interaction with people within the MSM and IDU community.

My team was not prepared for the behaviour of some of the guys at the MSM gathering. Poor Santosh was a little traumatized I think, and the girls for the most part had their mouths covered in the common gesture of shock at what was being said by the more emboldened MSM veterans. This dissipated as the day wore on. The bus ride home was a testament to this.

We have just, today, had our first meeting with IDUs in Tadiwala Road. IDUs we never searched out before the conference. IDUs who had always been there, either by the river, or next to the railway hall. It was a preliminary meeting. We are not here to turn you into the cops. We are here to learn from you about how we can possibly help.

The team has to be prepared before we engage with these communities. They have undergone training just last week on how to approach the IDU community. More training is required. They need further interaction with MSM and IDU communities. It is not going to be easy, and perceptions do not change overnight.

Stigma at City of Child… is it possible? Yes. Perceptions do not change overnight. Sustained HIV education and sensitization programmes are required. City of Child, I believe, will one day open its doors again to HIV+ people. Until that day, we will continue to fight stigma and discrimination and educate and re-educate… re-education is crucial. The trite ‘un-learning’ is required if we are to move forward.

Major Tom to Ground Control... I think we're going to need more than protein pills.

And the beat goes on...

2006-08-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

Deep Griha Blog
'On with the dance' Hans always says (and it took me 2 months to find out where that sentiment came from). And that's just it: the dance at Deep Griha Society will continue long after Sara and I leave - which is in 3 days' time. We've only been here two months and for my part I can say it's gone like so many autorickshaws - quickly, and at times stomach-churningly! But already this place feels so... 'normal', whatever that is, and it will be strange to leave. But you've all heard that before, countless times no doubt, as volunteers come and go in an endless cycle of fearful beginnings and tearful goodbyes. I really don't know how the hell staff keep up with and humour the volunteers who express the same sentiments as those in the same boat a few months previously. In fact there's a lot I admire about the peope who work here. They've heard us complain about the most insignificant things and only smiled knowingly in response. They work their asses off for the good of others.
Yesterday, we cleaned up the creches at Tadiwala Road. It felt good to get my hands dirty and see the results of our work. The new Link volunteers got right in there and scrubbed and painted til they harldy looked like the same rooms. That's when I realised - this whole affair, working for NGOs - it really shouldn't be about 'self'. Working as part of a team, whether scrubbing all manner of nasty things off floors or having the phone hung up on you as you try to fundraise for the 'Wake Up Pune!' campaign, there's no room for ego. The beat will go on if you leave tomorrow, although you can at least feel confident you did your bit, however insignificant that might seem. Not that it ends with one little trip to India. Watching DISHA at work, getting involved with 'Wake Up Pune!', giving a presentation to a very enthusiastic group of Girl Guides at Sangam - all these things have ignited some fire in me about HIV/AIDS awareness, so I plan to take my attempts at dancing Pune-style back to sunny Scotland (and they HAVE had more sun at home this summer - bastards!).
I always think it's a shame that the blogs here can be a little single focus... I guess it's because HIV/AIDS is such an emotive issue. But for the record I'd like to point out that DGS does some amazing work that's not related to this (saying that, Neela has taught me that all the issues dealt with here are inextricably linked). But right now the hot topic for some of us is the campaign (which finally looks like it's going to be a success) to kick Pune's ass into gear and stop the stigma. Shame I'm missing the rock show - some of the girls here have seen the ridiculous way I conduct myself when there's a bit of the heavy stuff playing. I'm afraid I'll have to deprive everyone of the Dreadlock Windmill, which is a great way of getting some elbow room in a big crowd (which of course, there will be at the show in November!)...
Well, off I go then, dancing to the beat of the Hindi films I've become hooked on (or perhaps a little motivational rock). Keep up the good work y'all!
Mo Ford (DiA).

The Chaos Within - Time to Deliver

2006-08-20T10:26:00.000-07:00

I am in Calgary.

The conference in Toronto is over. I am here to meet with Rachel Parker, DISHA volunteer and friend who came to us through the girl guide centre SANGAM in Pune. Rachel's parents also operate the Parker Oak Fund that have funded the DISHA and Sahara Aalhad projects and the Parker Oak Fund helped fund my airfare for the conference. Also here is Laine Racher, DISHA volunteer who helped fund the rest of the airfare. It was so good to see them both again.

The theme of the conference was time to deliver... enough talk, it is time for action... I learnt a lot at this conference. The approach to HIV/AIDS in Tadiwala Road and Pune will not be the same as a result and Dr. Jasmine from Project Concern International that met up with me in Toronto agrees. We can do so much more!

This is one 'positive' from this conference.

Another 'positive' was the opportunity to network and learn from other grassroots intervention projects in India and around the world. Tini, my Malaysian transgender friend who is the Asia Pacific coordinator for Asia Pacific Network of Sexworkers (APSNW) is a case in point. She will be in Delhi next month and we hope to coordinate a visit to Pune.

This should be interesting for Deep Griha! We cannot ignore the transgender community amongst us. Sahara Delhi has shown us that the HIV prevalence rate in the TG community is 45%. They must be included. Heterosexual males continue to have unprotected sex with the TG sex workers and while society would rather ignore this and pretend it does not happen, it does!

Tini will prove to be the antithesis to the perception of the TG community in India... perceptions that are shared by many at Deep Griha Society. I have no doubt that if we allow for it, she will help us at Deep Griha approach this issue sensitively.

The conference was also frustrating.

As you may have gathered from my previous blogs, there exists a gap between the research and the the implementation on the ground, and this needs to be addressed. Again, with a HIV/AIDS coalition in the city we can hopefully use the research that is being done to form the basis of the interventions that are required both at community level and in the city.

Finally... I wore my HIV Positive T-shirt at the conference. This t-shirt supports the campaign that is supported by Nelson Mandela. Very simply 'HIV Positive' is emblazoned across the front. During the conference no one gave us a second look... but yesterday, Saturday morning with the conference over, as I walked down the same route I had done for a week I kept getting these looks that possibly amounted to: 'The conference is over. Why the fuck are you still here.'

I say possibly, because I could not be certain, just felt like it.

Then I got to Calgary...

The girls that I spent the evening with were a little concerned about the t-shirt... its a redneck city, how will people react etc. I immediately offered to change. They said no.

The taxi arrived to take us to a club.

The driver saw me and said, "I will take everyone except the guy who is HIV+."

The girls were mortified. I smiled. Time to Deliver...

The driver was a Pakistani doctor waiting on his licence to practive and his excuse for turning me down was... "I'm a doctor and I know about these things."

I changed my t-shirt, amidst protests - I have experienced enough discrimination to choose the battles I fight - got back to the cab and asked him if he minded me sitting next to him. The girls had already ripped him apart really, so he was quite apolegetic. I then engaged with him. He spoke about how he was stigmatised against as a doctor from Pakistan and how he had been reduced to driving a cab because his qualifications weren't good enough, although he knew so much about medicine etc... I then asked him how he felt... and he saw where I was going. We had a good chat for the 15 minute drive or so... and he shook my hand as I got down...

Time to deliver... who is going to deliver?

The Bill Gates and Bill Clintons of this world or the Neelas and Nevilles, the Tinis and Shantanus, the Latas and Mayas, the Avinashes and Meeras, the Pauls and Meetas?

Whose responsibility is it not to stigmatise against an HIV+ person?

Whose responsibility is it to hold local and national governments accountable for how they approach issues like HIV/AIDS and poverty and gender violence?

Whose responsibility is it to support the work on the ground with more than platitudes and empty words?

Go look in a mirror...

Back at Home!

2006-08-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys,
I can't believe that it's been nearly weeks since I left India! It's been an interesting 2 weeks though! When we all got back to Edinburgh, we were searching through the crowds for our parents. I saw my mum waving - I ran up and gave her a cuddle - it was great, me, mum and dad had a group hug - it was so cute! I had a Costa coffee!! It was great. Driving down the motorway - it felt like I had never left, it was a wierd feeling. I got back home, and was told that I had to pack up to go to our house in Fife - very rushed! But it was great to see everything. My parents took me out for a meal that night, and I had haggis for starter and sirloin steak for bloody main course!!! WOW!!!!

Waking up the next morning was dead wierd - I was in my own bed with a thick duvet over me - how strange is that! It was time for church, so I got all my photos ready to take with me, and when I got there, I was shaking so much because I was nervous about seeing everybody - but the hugs I got from everybody were amazing. My church have just had an extension built, which looks amazing - it's huge! I got a welcome back lunch from the church, which was a lovely welcome back.

It's wierd being back - nearly 3 weeks on and I am due to start college doing Highers (English and Biology) and I've got a job at B&Q on the checkouts as a sunday job. I love being back.

Just to warn you Hans, I am planning on coming back next summer for a couple of months!!! I can't wait!!!

See you all then!!

- Philip Ross

The Chaos Within - XVI AIDS Conference II

2006-08-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended a session on 'HIV/AIDS and Poverty: Breaking the viscous Cycle.'

I expected that India would turn out in force to this session. There are almost a hundred delegates from India here.

I forgot it was the 15th of August. Everyone was off for a flag hoisting ceremony... or so it seemed.

Right through the presentations at this session on poverty and HIV/AIDS - none of which were from Asia - they spoke of the viscous cycle poverty and the problem of access to funds. The mechanisms in place that make it difficult for international and national funds to be accessed by grassroots community based organisations... not one of the panel spoke of corruption.

I thought of Sahara Aalhad and PSACS - Pune AIDS Control Society - demanding a 20% kick back... and I asked why the panel had failed to address this very real, albeit unpleasant fact when it comes to the access and implementation of funds... of course everyone then wanted to talk about corruption. Don't get me wrong I think NGOs have had their role in contributing to the corruption. Let's be clear, transparency and accountability are relatively recent developments in the NGO sector, DGS included.

The Indian response here - I may have missed it - appears to be low key. One presentation spoke of low HIV prevalence and cited the 2005 study of 5.2 Million estimated cases of PLWHA in India. I am the last person to focus on numbers. BUT UNAIDS pushed up the estimate to 5.7 million in June this year. We lead the world as a nation and there is no fucking point to keep patting ourselves on the back about the fact that we are a low prevalence country. The lady from Delhi wasn't too pleased.

Its frustrating. I am not here to point out everything that is wrong with the Indian response. There is a lot of everything that is right too. BUT we must guard against complacency and how we plan and implement our response to HIV. Every time they talk shit I am reminded of the 58 DISHA clients and all the clients at Sahara that I have had the privilege to work with and befriend - including those that continue to frustrate us with their attitudes to nutrition, SAM adherence and IGP.

The contexts are complex, granted, but we know on the project that the contexts are complex... And our response is with the complex contexts in mind.

This afternoon I listened to a presentation from B J Medical College on Repeat Pregnancies among HIV+ women on the Sassoon PMTCT - prevention of mother to child transmission - programme. Yes, they are here too.

Again, all that she spoke of reflected the experiences of Shobha. Loss of a child, loneliness, lack of planning with the new birth... I agreed with all the findings. And said as much. BUT what astounds me is that if there is this extremely important research happening in our back yard, why haven't we been brought in as HIV/AIDS NGOs to discuss the findings, preliminary or otherwise, so that we can together plan strategic intervention programmes to address the issue.

We are the agencies on the ground, and there is a gap between the research and the plans of action that rise from this research. Evidence is crucial and that is something that has come home to me here, but we have to use the evidence to make sure we have intervention programmes that work!

She agreed. And her colleagues post presentation were a little defensive to begin with, but soon realised that I was not out to attack, rather work together!

Meetings will take place on our return.

Again, I cannot stress enough how important these meetings we have between us for Wake Up Pune are... from all reports they can be frustrating, but they are so crucial in us finally working together.

The Wake Up Pune initiative is not just about the rise of civil society and the raising of awareness amongst the youth of the city, it is about NGOs like ours coming together to work for the issue we are so passionate about in our corners.

We are on to something here, and while there is a danger that we as Deep Griha might be doing most of the work - an observation by Avinash - it will not matter in the end if we can deliver together.

The Rally at least... if the funding for the Rock Show fall through.

Today I made two new friends... one is an ex sex worker and drug addict in Canada who walked up to me and asked me to roll her a joint because she doesn't know how to roll, and I must do because I had the drum and papers next to me. I obliged and what followed was a great hour or so with her and her friends. All ex drug addicts - cannabis is legal for HIV+ people here - and all HIV+. Cash spoke about her journey, and it was fascinating.

Then in the evening I helped Esther - my friend who runs the project with HIV+ women Masai in Kenya - with her stall. Her stall was next to the stall run by Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers. I ended up being invited to a transgender party of Friday by Khartini Slamah a coordinator of APNSW who works in Thailand and Malaysia in framing policy for the rights of sex workers.

APNSW's slogan is: "We do not need sewing machines, what we need is human rights."

She and I spent a long time just talking about India - she is well acquainted with Sahara's project and has spent time in Delhi and Mumbai - and, again, fantastic.

I'm taking her out for a drink tomorrow.

Let's come back to Pune, and to Tadiwala Road in particular. We are doing so much that is right and innovative, but we lack the evidence base and this is required if our models are to be replicated elsewhere, or more to the point, if we are to advocate our core approaches.

We need more research students volunteering with us... and the report I plan to write about the way forward for us will include this and much more.

The 'Wake Up Pune' initiative is our starting point though, especially for the collaberative revalued response we need to plan for... and again, it is so frustrating being here, despite all I am learning.

Mo... a special thank you to you too, I left you out last time, and to Paul and to Sharon and everyone else - you too Meeta! - who help Sara and Smiler.

A thank you to Avinash and Pramila too and the team from Maya to Koli maushi. The confidence I feel about the project is because of how committed you all are.

I'm being nice eh... that's because I am so many millions of miles away.

Finally, Stevie if you are reading this, fuck!!! I wish you were back here! I need an artist on my return for the campaigns that will take place.

My pint before bed awaits...

The Chaos Within - XVI AIDS Conference

2006-08-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am here.

When I arrived in Toronto via Moscow - long flight - we were greeted by the Canadian immigration who boarded the plane just to check if we were legit. The ripples of London reached here too.

Welcome to North America.

The first few days involved sleep and a gorgeous drive through the vine country of Canada to Niagara Falls.

Lots of water.

Now the conference... what can I say... on the first day, Sunday, immediately after registration I stumbled into a satellite symposium on HIV and disability. Stumbled on... well, I couldn't ignore it, especially after my experience with the questionnaire that I wrote about last time.

I stood up and admitted how embarrassed I was as a grassroots activist and interventionist - don't you love the jargon? - to have ignored the disabled community thus far. This was followed by some great networking on possible approaches. Paul you'll be proud of me.

Paul's parting words to me were, "Network, network, network."

Then came the opening ceremony... I have never felt so alone in a crowd of over 20,000. How wonderful it would have been if someone was here with me. Never again will I attend these conferences alone. I will ensure that I have with me another DISHA team member or volunteer. These experiences have to be shared.

I listened to Bill and Melinda Gates and of course Richard Gere amongst others.
Stigma emerged as a major concern. This will become apparent in the rest of this blog.

The gorgeous, yes gorgeous Canadian governor General of Canada spoke of the fact that 'AIDS has no boundaries' and that it gives a flying fuck about 'our prejudices.' (Her words were more temperate.)

We must act now.
We cannot remain indifferent.
To give up is unforgivable.
The battle against AIDS is a battle for life!

I sat there pondering my decision to leave Pune at the end of next year... I'll return to this momentarily.

Then came a young woman from Thailand who was born the year that AIDS was discovered: 1981.

She spoke articulately on Stigma and Discrimination (S & D) and suddenly said, fuck it!

"Stigma is irreducible. Accept it. Move on. Don't give it the power it craves."

I have sat through sessions just today on S & D that have echoed this. Don't give it the power it craves. Don't give a fuck.

And while I do agree... I have seen what S & D can do in our community of Tadiwala Road. I have seen and felt people die because of S & D. To say 'fuck it' is not always possible... it wasn't possible for Saraswathi. It wasn't possible for Anita. It wasn't possible for Milind. The list goes on.

Some parts of the world have moved on. We are still working our way through S & D. Hopefully one day we can come to a position that says 'fuck it' too. But not yet.

And talking about time scales... Dr. Piot who leads the UNAIDS unequivocally declared that while HIV/AIDS is 25 years old, it'll take at least another 25 to eradicate it. That too, if we all work together.

I sat there thinking of Tadiwala Road... about my decision to move on...

DISHA team, including volunteers, I know you are working hard on the 'Wake Up Pune' initiative, especially Sara and Smiler. I am grateful to you for it. But those of you who will be with us over this next year are in for a ride... there is no rest for the wicked... and wicked we must be!

Bill and Melinda Gates spoke on microbicide research and women centric initiatives are huge here. It is inspiring and Stephen Lewis - thank you Rachel for introducing me to the way this man thinks - is crucial. His thoughts will influence the way we work on the DISHA project. Not just where the empowerment of women are concerned but where holistic and sustained approaches are concerned that include the need for relentless advocacy.

The Gates couple also underlined that "Stigma has made AIDS harder to fight."

Stigma is cruel.
Stigma is irrational.

Their words. Guys our focus on S & D on the DISHA project is intuitive. It is a response to what we have experienced. It is not in response to an evidence based study. This is why it will succeed. It is real. We feel it. We smell it. We taste it.

Our clients feel it.
Our clients smell it.
Our clients taste it.

The 'Wake Up Pune' initiative is so crucial to this battle. There have been innumerable moments these last two days that I have wished that I could flip open my phone and ask Scotty to beam me up and then beam me down back to Pune. Back and forth. Forth and back. What we are trying to achieve is real guys, and more than ever I appreciate that a 'one off' event or couple of events are not going to achieve much. It is merely the beginning. We have to make Pune a HIV Positive City and the coalition of sorts that we are trying to put together with the 'Wake Up Pune' initiative is the first step.

We have to inspire organisations that work with us. We have to ensure that they deliver... and if Sara and Smiler's e-mails are anything to go by... then fuck, we have our work cut out.

This morning I sat in on a session with Bill & Bill: Gates and Clinton talking about the holistic approaches that are required if we are to make any headway against HIV/AIDS.

Holistic. Holistic. Holistic.

This conference has resulted in umpteen evaluations on the DISHA project in my head. We are good. We have achieved much! We have fallen down too. We have to pick ourselves up and approach from a different angle, especially on the stigma issue in the community. This includes the vulnerable members of the Tadiwala Road community that we have largely ignored: MSM, IDU, transgender, disabled... not on purpose... well... maybe deep down we felt that we were not equipped, although we have never admitted to this... no more excuses. We will find a way.

"We got to continue to fight stigma." We need "aggressive efforts against stigma"
William J Clinton

All sectors of the community must be reached! This is must be DISHA's first step against stigma... insidious layered stigma!

Here in Toronto S & D appears to be the obstacle at every turn. It is crucial that our response to S & D must be measured and integrate with the intervention required in our specific contexts. Yet, to ignore it, to pretend that we can overcome it by ignoring it, will only lead to more Saraswathis and Anitas and Milinds and an overflowing Sahara Care Home in Wagholi: A place of abandonment, death... refuse. And there are Saraswathis, Anitas and Milinds amongst the MSM, IDU, Transgender and disabled community too.

Finally today I attended the symposium on HIV/AIDS and Media - it is agonizingly difficult to attend every session, especially the concurrent sessions - and as you guys know the issue of media is something that we on the DISHA project engage with.

Gere was back with a distinguished panel of media leaders including the MTV head and Peter Mukherji who heads up Star India...

Gere and Mukherji in particular were very positive about the initiatives with media in India.

I sat there smoldering... its not that I didn't agree but especially where the print media was concerned we have seen quite a few articles that are absolutely fucking crap! Also the issue of the media's focus on sex... I pondered whether to take the floor... this was Richard Gere... and then I thought fuck it! I represent the DISHA/Sahara clients and team! I was up and raising my concerns and by then gave a fuck about what anyone thought. I have discussed these issues ad nauseum in Pune, why the fuck shouldn't I bring them up here.

I had Mr. Gere agree with me... I was laughing inside at how surreal this was on the one hand and fucking stony cold on the outside as I pushed him to clarify his position and also of course Peter Mukherji...

This is what this conference can do. It brings together frontline grassroots little people like me and gives us a forum to engage with those like Gere, Gates and Clinton... and more.

The big guns in the field are here guys. And there is no need to be overawed by this. Take them on. Talk to them. Push them. We know what the reality on the ground is... but make sure we learn too. They have much to teach us. Much! In a day and a half I have learned more than I ever imagined I would. The responses to this global pandemic are overwhelming... and it is crucial that we do not become overwhelmed, but rather focus on our communities and focus the responses we encounter here and adapt/tailor them to the responses/intervention required in a community like Tadiwala Road and the city of Pune.

Like I said earlier DISHA team and volunteers who will be with us long term... we have much to do.

Miss you all.

On with the dance!

The Chaos Within - Wake Up Pune

2006-08-01T03:33:00.000-07:00

This morning we had a meeting of HIV/AIDS NGOs for the Wake Up Pune initiative. It was a focused meeting with Project Concern International (PCI), Muktaa, Sahara Aalhad, NMP+ the positive people's network in Pune, HRLD - Human Rights and Law Defenders, Sarva Seva Sangh run by the Roman Catholic diocese, Soudamini trust that focuses on HIV+ women and children and Deep Griha Society's DISHA.

It has begun. Organisations are coming together to work for the issue, and work together for people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

The first Wake Up Pune rally has been planned for the 10th of September 2006. The plan is to mobilise thousands across the city and have them converge on MG Road on Sunday evening. The Walking Plaza on MG road on the weekends is an ideal forum with which to reach out to Pune. It is our first step in shaking Pune awake and letting them know that HIV/AIDS can no longer be ignored. People Living With and affected by HIV/AIDS can no longer be marginalised!

It was a good morning.

This afternoon I received an e-mail from Shodhana Consultancy which currently works with UNICEF Mumbai on the project on "Social Exclusion." They had a questionnaire for us to fill on HIV/AIDS and the disabled...

Their questions began with:

Do you think that disabled people might be at risk for HIV/AIDS?

Do you think that disabled people are at greater risk for HIV/AIDS than non-disabled people?

My immediate reaction was to answer yes, Of course! The mentally disabled in particular can be taken advantage of, as not all of them understand issues of sex and sexuality. Just yesterday in the Indian Express newspaper we read of a ward boy in Kerala raping a woman who had suffered 65% burns in the hospital toilet. She was physically disabled and had to undergo further trauma within hours of her self-immolation.

We can be evil.

We can and have and will take advantage of the disadvantaged.

Disabled people including disabled children in particular have and will be taken advantage of... We had a three year old girl in our crèche who was raped in a nearby public toilet. The stories are endless.

The questionnaire went on to ask what we as a organisation was doing... What intervention programmes if any were we running for disabled people in context of HIV/AIDS awareness and education.

It was a painful few moments as Shazma and I wrote 'NO' and 'Don't Know' in response to 99% of the questions.

We don't even know where to begin and we honestly said as much at the end of the questionnaire. Yet, even as I was writing these last few comments I thought about the kids that greet us every morning as they await the bus to take them to the Kamayani Institute for mentally disabled children and young adults. Kids from the Tadiwala Road community that are vulnerable to the predator that man can be. The Tadiwala Road community, Ramtekadi and Bibwewadi communities are our communities. Communities that we have worked in for almost 30 years.

Empowerment of the marginalised... that is how Deep Griha's mission statement begins.

The battle is on many fronts, and the battles have to be fought. Complacency is endemic in the NGO sector. And even when new ideas for projects come thick and fast we have to ensure that we do not forget the most vulnerable in our communities.

DISHA is well placed but almost everyday we realise there is more and more and more that needs to be done.

If we come together like we have then we will achieve the more, and then the more that comes after.

Wake Up Pune... yes... but fuck, we need to wake up too.

What can I say?

2006-07-23T06:29:00.000-07:00

rAlmost at the end of our time now...I know people will end up being sick of blogs about our leaving but here's another one. Ha ha. I'm looking forward to going home now, seeing all my family, friends and my boyfriend that I haven't seen in 6 months. Although I'm excited, part of me is always going to be sad at what I'm leaving behind - all the friends I have made here, the kids I've gotten to know, the work that has become daily life for the past 5 1/2 months and yes I'll even miss living in a house with numerous other people - how strange is it going to be with just me and my parents - and having to queue up for the use of my own straighteners?

However I will be back at some point next year - hopefully in early 2007 - if Hans will let me of course, he's maybe had enough! I can't actually think of what to say - it's a weird mix of feelings, excitment, sadness, a little nervous about not knowing how much I have changed until I get home. I think every one of us here will have changed in some way. No-one can do what we have done, see what we have seen and be the same person when they go home. The way we think about everything is going to be completely different - it's really scary not knowing what to expect.

About my time working with Deep Griha - in his latest blog, Hans described all the volunteers as "a team that has so embraced Deep Griha like no team has done before", all I can say to that is whats not to embrace? The laughter, the smiles, the feeling of being welcome the second you step through the doors, being part of a team that to be honest is more like a family that you are brought into at your first meeting?

For me this experience has been both the best experience of my life so far and a bit of a challenge. The people I have met I will never forget - including those in Bidar. There are things that will always make me smile when I think about them - like Kumar dancing at Sahara...Kumar dancing anywhere for that matter, visiting the Bidar fort with the DISHA team, playing carrom, countless nights out which were filled with laughter and usually ended in a sing-song, sitting on the balcony at the DGCC with another volunteer talking about the most random of things. The list could go on and on.

I don't even know how to start saying goodbye to everyone here, especially to Kumar and Anand - how do you say goodbye?

Esther

Less than 4 weeks

2006-07-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Well, what can I say, apart from it’s nearly 3 bloody weeks til I - and the rest of the Link volunteers - go back home to Scotland. It is so scary that we only have that much time left! There is so much left to do – like pack for one, check whether I’ve actually got a seat on the plane, and send home clothes that won’t fit in my rucksack.

Like my fellow volunteer David said in his recent blog ‘it’s down to a fortnight of work (Hang on WHAT?!), a week, (WAIT!), 3 weeks travelling (NO! I still need to…), 2 (WOW! TOO FAST!), 1 week (PLEASE SLOW DOWN!!!!), 1 day (BUT!…) In Scotland (WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!)’.

It will just go too fast for our liking, and before you we will be back in Scotland! How crazy is it – the 6 months have zoomed by in a blink of an eye! Although the first few weeks dragged and made us feel as though we were here for the long haul, the rest of the weeks (which have turned into months) zoom by like Michael Schumacher in his Ferrari!! That’s the only simile that springs to my mind, and I think it describes our time here to a tee!

Personally, my time here has been unforgettable, and I will cherish the moments. I’m sure, as time passes back at home, I will look at my India photos and think to myself ‘did I really do that’, and my mum will turn round and probably say ‘Yes, unless you have been hiding under your bed for 6 months’. She is funny; I miss her terribly, and in less than 4 weeks – YES 4 WEEKS!!! I will see her J.

But, there are certain moments of my stay here that will probably stay with me until I die like – visiting the Taj Mahal (but to be fair who would forget seeing that?), riding a camel and nearly falling off it, going to the ‘All American Diner’ in Delhi and having a hot dog – delicious.

But all of those are miniscule compared to teaching those brilliant kids, and helping out in the crèches! I don’t think Ramtekadi and Tadiwala will be the same without us! I don’t think Hans will be the same without us! He’s been great!! I think I will probably miss him the most!

Before I came out here, my friends kept saying that this would make me grow up so much! What can I say, it bloody has, I mean, going on a 40 hour train journey from Delhi – Goa. Most people would think ‘are you insane’, I probably was, and I know I was, but it was great.

I was talking to Tess (another link volunteer) and she mentioned how much I’ve grown up, and she also mentioned, that when I arrived in India, I wouldn’t go to the bloody shops without another person with me, and less than 2 months ago – WHAT!!! 2 MONTHS? – I was on a 40-hour train journey down to Goa!

On next Monday evening, I will be on a bus to Hyderabad, and guess what, I’m going on my own! I’ve grown up so much, I am going to spend just one week there – ON MY OWN! I can’t bloody wait!

You know, I’ve been writing this blog for a while now, and it made me think, why am I doing this when we’ve only got 4 weeks (less than) in India – I’ve got stuff to do.

Let’s hope Michael’s Ferrari breaks down!!

-Philip Ross

The Chaos Within - Unconfined Joy.

2006-07-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

On the 5th of July Deep Griha celebrated 31 years of service.

The Deep Griha family came together at the YMCA to celebrate: Project staff, administration, trustees and board members and of course volunteers.

It was a day of letting go, a day of reflection, and albeit that you may be tired of what some call my obsession - it was a day of dance.

But before I get to the very real dance that happened at the 31st celebration, I want to speak of a dance of togetherness that occurred that very day between four organizations.

1. Project Concern International (PCI) that run HIV/AIDS intervention projects (Pathway), much like DISHA right across the city of Pune.

2. Muktaa (Making U Know & Talk About AIDS) HIV/AIDS help-line that is Pune based and anonymous, helping and directing thousands who have concerns about HIV or have contracted it.

3. Sahara Aalhad Residential Care and Rehabilitation Centre that never turn away HIV+ client.

4. Deep Griha's DISHA project.

We've come together as part of the 'Wake Up Pune' campaign that will run in 2006 leading up to World AIDS Day on December 1st.

In the NGO climate organizations working so closely together is rare. NGOs are very protective of their limited funding and possessive of the communities they serve. Often the beneficiary (in this case those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS) and the cause or issue (HIV/AIDS) is secondary to the agenda of the NGO.

I speak through experience. I have said before that there is a lot of money in poverty, and currently there is a lot of money in HIV/AIDS. Projects have sprung up overnight in the hope of accessing these funds, yet the intervention projects that are run are sadly all too often organization based, i.e., the funds are a means to employing their staff and sustaining an organization rather than genuine intervention.

This is not a very popular view. Yet there is more than enough evidence that points to this in the Indian NGO sector in particular. Corruption is endemic. Let's not pretend any different. WHO's decision to freeze funding to India a few months ago was a result of the misappropriation and general mayhem that rules!

The comprehensive approach to the battle against HIV/AIDS that PCI, Muktaa, Sahara Aalhad and DISHA hope will result from our tie up covers all aspects of the pandemic. Education and awareness as part of the prevention and control components and rehabilitation, treatment of opportunistic infections (OIs) and qualitative palliative care in context of the care component.

An example of this is the proposed tie-up in the urban slum community of Yerewada. Sahara Aalhad have an existing office here but no funds to run a sustained intervention programme. With DISHA providing the education and awareness including psycho-social support; Muktaa the helpline; PCI offering their mobile clinic for treatment of OIs; and Sahara Aalhad rehabilitation and residential care, we can make a difference for PLWHA and the affected in this community.

After the meeting Paul, Smiler, Errol and Malik joined me at the YMCA to celebrate Deep Griha's 31st anniversary.

We arrived just in time for lunch.

The entertainment programmes began soon after.

The volunteers danced. Emily, Sharon, Sam, Tess, Shazma, Esther, Stevie, Nicola, and Katie did a beautifully choreographed dance in their colour coordinated skirts to a popular Hindi song. There were immediate calls for an encore.

The DISHA team then danced. Madhuri, Maya, Rani, Deepa and Lata. HIV an end to life? I sat there and watched them lose themselves in the rhythm, the music, and I have never felt so alive!

The volunteers then all got together, Link and independents and they sang 'Let It Be.' What does one do? What does one say? Nothing. Words are often so fucking superfluous.

And then they danced again. They heeded the calls for an encore and everyone rushed forward to get a closer look at a team that has so embraced Deep Griha like no team has done before.

I cannot of course forget David Lyon's solo performance. The boy is dance. Manic, unconfined dance!

"Let your joy be unconfined" Twain said... Aye, our joy was unconfined.

1 month at City of Child

2006-07-10T00:25:00.000-07:00

Well, sorry that I haven't written a blog in a while, it's because I have been at City of Child doing a spot of painting! Well not exactly a spot, not like a lot! Bloody hell, it's been a busy month, we've done so much, and when I look back at what I've done - I'm very proud!!

Originally, it was only meant to be Stevie, Jamie and I going, back the day before we were due to go, 3 new volunteers arrived (Emily, Claire and Lorna), and Bhaskar had asked if they can come out as well. I must admit, when they said they were coming out, it was the best thing I had ever heard as I didn't know what was happening!
3 extra people to help us, it's a miracle - it really is.

It was great at City of Child, although the longest stay there was only 4 days, so I was a bit worried if I was going to be ok. City of Child is out in the middle of no-where in the village of Kasurdi, with only one shop which is about 30 minutes walk from the City of Child! I'm used to having shops right on my doorstep pretty much and now I would have to walk 30 minutes! Also, we had to bring water from the cultural centre, and we were all worrying if the water we had was going to be enough!! It was boiling out there, so we were going to need plenty water!

Even though I was worried about the water and whether I was going to stay sane for the 4 weeks - the kids brighten up my day, when they get back from school, all they want to do if play in the park - which is great fun!! They also love their clapping games - 'my name is', 'my father went to sea' and 'zig, zag, zoom' - they love them.
The food is amazing as well - although you do get tired of eating rice, dahl and chapatti every day, twice a day!

I need a pizza!

Oh, chocloate milkshake!

It's wierd, you appreciate things so much more when you haven't got them readily available!! What am I going to do for this month with pizza or a mcdonalds! Well I come back at weekends!

-Philip Ross

The Chaos Within

2006-07-02T23:17:00.000-07:00

Fight!!! We need your help. Every one of you.

Hans

Perspective: What 25 years of AIDS Has Taught Me
By Eric Sawyer, published by CommonDreams.org
10 June 2006
*************

I have been living with symptoms of HIV/AIDS for 25 years, and I am glad to have survived to see this week's marking of the 25th anniversary of the first recognition of the disease. For these many years I have been able to manage my symptoms and contribute to society by educating others about the disease and advocating for stronger public and private action to end the epidemic.

That's why it troubles me so much to see that many of the lessons of the last 25 years of AIDS are being ignored by policymakers and government officials. While my own medical fight against HIV infection is being won, on a global level, the fight is still being lost.

Over 11,000 people are infected with HIV for the first time every day, despite clear evidence that, when people understand HIV and have the tools to prevent it, infections can be greatly reduced. Over 8,000 people are dying needless deaths every day, despite the fact that we now have the medications to keep them alive.

Why is this happening? The central problem is that a key lesson of the past 25 years - the need to keep ourselves honest in this fight by setting clear timetables for reaching basic goals - is being ignored by world leaders.

Last week's United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, which I attended, is a case in point. From the outside, this event seemed to represent more progress in the fight against AIDS. Important statements were made, for instance, about the need to end the violence against women that underlies the epidemic in much of the world. But, the meeting failed to produce the clear road map we need to really confront AIDS, in sharp contrast to the UN plan issued in 2001 on the same issue, which included specific milestones.

As an American, it was especially appalling to witness the role of US
diplomats at this meeting. I had to watch as they fought to prevent the UN from including the specific, time-bound goals that African governments and civic groups had called for just one month ago at a summit in Nigeria. One of these was to deliver AIDS treatment to 80% of the people who need it in Africa by 2010. While US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the US approach to AIDS is "rooted in partnership with Africa," the US insisted this clear target be left out of the UN plan.

Another instance of accountability-avoidance struck me as bordering on nonsensical. The American public does not want to see the US shoulder the whole burden of the fight against AIDS. Since the US is already providing a significant share of the resources needed, it would make sense to include a clear global funding commitment in the UN declaration. Then, that promise could be used to help persuade Japan, Canada, countries in Europe, and others, to increase their contributions.

Yet, oddly, the US government refused to go along with setting such a
funding commitment. So, while First Lady Laura Bush told the UN session that "The United States looks forward to working with you, and to finally winning the fight against AIDS," just down the hall US diplomats were insisting the UN statement avoid any commitment to provide the funding needed to actually do this. She also spoke in her address of the benefits of the US contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, while, back in Washington, President Bush has proposed cutting this contribution by 45%.

Platitudes and vague promises will not win the fight against AIDS. AIDS could kill 31 million people in India and 18 million in China by 2025, according to projections by the UN. In Africa, the toll could reach 100 million.

To prevent this nightmare from unfolding, we have to admit that the
problem today is not primarily technological or medical. It's that we are still not bringing to this fight the level of seriousness and resolve needed to overcome the problem.

We as people who care about the millions suffering and dying have to go beyond more candlelight memorials for those who have died. Instead, let's declare the next 25 years a zone of zero-tolerance for empty rhetoric and insist on results.

Eric Sawyer is the co-founder of ACT-UP New York, an AIDS activist group, and co-founder of Housing Works, the largest provider of housing for people with AIDS in the U.S. Mr. Sawyer has been HIV-positive since 1981.

The Chaos Within - The return of the dance!

2006-06-26T04:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written a blog. There has been so much to write about... and yes, I've had the time if I needed it... but somehow I couldn't bring myself to sit down and write again... for a time, after Saraswathi and Ashok died, I forgot how to dance.

I gave myself over to work, to the play 'On Vacation' (which we did as an awareness/fund raiser for DISHA on the 17th of June). The fucking Deep Griha computers have played their share in keeping me away from my next blog. (Paul suggested that I - an almost priest - am qualified to perform an almost excorcism of the demons that have undoubtedly possessed the computers for so long now.) But sometimes you can't write... not because the words aren't there, but rather because you are afraid of what the words will say.

Dostoevsky in the 'Idiot' said, "my words don't always correspond to my thoughts and that is embarressing for the thoughts."

For me, while this is true, it meant that if they don't correspond, then something was in danger of pouring out that my thoughts can't guard against... and we all need to move to a position that doesn't allow us to be made bare and naked, a place where we can hide from ourselves, a place we trust... I am not making too much sense am I... let's go back... for a time I forgot how to dance and then, being in Delhi, forced me to remember.

On the Friday night, my first night here I was invited to the Sahara Coffee night on the roof terrace of their drug rehab centre. Here the music blared and the clients danced, abandoning themselves to the rhythm. 'Get high with music.' And fuck did I dance...

Then, this morning I visited Shantanu's transgender (TG) project. The return of the dance was reinforced. My time with Sahara has reminded me that we never stop dancing, we always move, through the pain, through the confusion, through the chaos.

The TG project in Old Delhi works with Eunuchs and homosexuals. It is a naked, real project. It reaches out to a people that have been misunderstood marginalised and manipulated, especially in recent history. Sex is a living. HIV/AIDS is most often a consequence. Selfrespect is on sabbatical.

Shantanu and his team are helping them find it again. When you sit with them and they glance shyly... you don't know how to react. Smile... of course I smiled. It was met with a stony glare. I smiled again, and the suspicioun very slowly melted.

Of course I'd need to work or volunteer here to make any connection, but listening to their stories, listening about how they have been reduced to less than human because they are neither male nor female, reminded me of how fucking flawed we are as humanity.

People have attempted to explain evil to me as a force that is outside of us, as is good. Spending the morning on the TG project reinforced my belief in the fact that good and evil are of us. It is as human as our need for love. It is as complicated as our need for love. It is as simple as our need for love.

And the transgender community love to dance. Watching them today I realised that the need to dance is human and simple and complicated too. Primeval. And my insides filled with gratitude.

I have been priveleged to work with and meet people that continue to inspire me... from Dr. Onawale, to Neville, to Shantanu and Mirchi, to the dancer, to my fantastic team, and of course the team of Deep Griha volunteers (and that new Sahara volunteer with the gorgeous smile) that I miss as much or more than they do me.

The cliche that every day is a beginning, that we are reborn with the the coming of dawn, is not just a truism, I have felt it again, deep deep deep inside me.

There is much to do. Ahead of us are weeks of hard work and sacrifice... bring it on! With those around me at DISHA, Sahara and of course Deep Griha, nothing is impossible.

On with the dance... it has returned.

A "Hans-less" DISHA

2006-06-26T03:13:00.000-07:00

Whatelse can I say you need to be here to see and believe it!
It is generally said that one realises the importance of something or someone when you no longer have it or have them around you! Indeed the saying has come true for my fellow collegues & friends!
well DISHA is not the same without Hans being around!
It has been less than a week, but yap he is surely being missed!
The DISHA team, the Volunteers, the Driver, the smokeless air,the unsweared ears,the eyes that see a soft heart behind the brave & strong Hans... of course that deadly Smile... oh? hans you are indeed missed!
Come back soon!
well Natasha says, A Hansless DISHA is " CHAOS!"
AISHA Says,"THE INDIA" is NOT the same without "THE HANS"!
KIM says, " oh Gahwd!"
Scotish Poaw says, "HE better be hung over from last nights game!" (while sporting his bright yellow and green BRAZIL shirt)

MISS YOU...

Shazma:-)

Time

2006-06-23T03:26:00.000-07:00

You know what’s scary? It’s Thursday, then Friday, then 6 weeks. Then it’s down to a fortnight of work (Hang on WHAT?!), a week, (WAIT!), 3 weeks travelling (NO! I still need to…), 2 (WOW! TOO FAST!), 1 week (PLEASE SLOW DOWN!!!!), 1 day (BUT!…) In Scotland (WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!).

OK, Lets calm down. Imagine if this is a dream and my mum is about to wake me up and tell me “Time to go to India!” That would be horrible. What if the people I went with turned out to be different people from the ones in this dream? What if they turned out the same? What if the plane really crashed on the way over here and I am lying in a bed in a coma and I am only in India in my mind?

Shit. Times too short. I need more of it. Times too fast. I need it to slow down. But when we need Time to slow down it speeds up more. When we need time to speed up it slows even further.

It needs to slow. So it’s going fast. Time is being spent writing this and telling you this. Damn. My Time in India’s running to the end as if it’s in a race with lightning. If only I could control time. But I can’t. What needs to be done is for the time we have left to be used. It will be over too soon. There it goes…

Fuck.

David Lyon

Never use guns or computers

2006-06-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

This blog starts with a funny but familiar scene.

I am watching Paul shout, scream and swear at the computer. This is a scene I’ve seen before, done by many people, in many different countries. People like to yell at the computer and shout at it when it doesn’t do what we want it to. But we never thank the computer for working perfectly. There is the obvious reason for not thanking a computer; it might talk back and then we know we’ve gone crazy. But why then do we think it would help yelling at a computer or pleading with it when it doesn’t work?

Let me just quote Paul’s advice to a little child just now - “Never use guns or computers.”

He was frustrated. He didn’t mean it. He will use a computer again, but why do we think that yelling at a computer is fine when nobody ever thanks a computer? I think the point is that we don’t think. Something’s gone wrong and we need someone to blame.

It was like on the sleeper bus going to The Himalayas; the bus stopped, the driver disappeared, so the passengers stood in a circle yelling at each other, as the real person to blame wasn’t about. It’s the same with computers, as nobody in the room is to blame, its easier to get angry with the computer, to hit it on the side, and threaten to throw it out the window, just because something’s gone wrong with it. The computer will never answer back at you and so it’s an easier argument to win. You also know that people in the room are on your side, as they’ve all yelled the same script as well.

“Stupid computer!” “Piece of junk!” “I’m going to throw this out the window!” “Error 562! What the hell does that mean!” “I hate this!” “Hate computers!” “AH!” “You’ve got more 5 seconds to work!” “Please work!” “OH! Come on! Work!” “Let me just try this once more!” “Right, we click that, then that, to file, and…come on please…NO!” “Don’t you dare!” “Fuck!” “Bloody thing!” “The file’s gone! NO! I’ve spent the last hour on that!” “I don’t care if the bloody proximity settings are off!” “Just print will you!” “It’s frozen!” “Oh shit!” etc.

You get the idea. You’ve heard it all before. You’ve probably said some of it yourself. The only reason to snap at someone in the room is if the guy sitting next to you foolishly tells you to calm down, trying to inject some reason into the situation. He may, if he’s lucky, get as far as the comment that yelling really doesn’t solve anything in the situation, before you bite his head off.

It’s true that the computer is going to be broken no matter what you say to it. You can’t scare the virus away. You can’t chase the error message to another place. You can’t make the power cut give you those unsaved pages back. But at that point you don’t care. You just need to yell at it, to get all the frustration building up inside of you, out in the open

That is possibly the reason. Yelling does help. It makes us feel better.

So a very big thanks you to this computer for being so helpful. It brought up the word processing document when I clicked on the icon. It put the correct letters on the page as I typed them. It even checked my page for errors when I asked but checked with me before changing anything. Thank you very much to the computer.

And thanks to Paul for putting the idea in my head.

David Lyon

PS You might like to know that I experienced trouble getting this onto the Internet. The connection didn’t work on this computer. I then tried to send this to another computer where the Internet was working but it failed to find a connection between the 2 computers. Stupid computers! AH!!!!!!!!

Faces

2006-06-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

These children live through so many things,
And yet their faces light up with smiles,
They don't focus on past tragedies,
Their stories go on for miles,
Even though they are still at the start.

The boy full of dance and laughter,
The girl who imagines her life to lead to her dreams.
And why shouldn't she have a dream?
She laughs and cries and plays and sings,
Just like every other child.

But unlike every other child,
God has dealt her an unfair hand,
In a few years she will no longer be here.
And that boy who dances now will be dancing in heaven,
Singing his song.

Their smiles,
Their voices,
Their laughs,
Their faces,
Will live on in our minds and hearts,
Forever.

1 Man's Death vs 40.3 Million Lives - Why does death win?

2006-06-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

I was ill. I had a temperature. It felt like the entire Scottish Rugby Team was jumping on my head. My whole body ached. Yes folks – I was ill.

I was also bored. They had gone to Sahara. They wouldn’t return until the next day. They had gone to Tadiwala Road. They wouldn’t return until night. They had gone to City of Child. They wouldn’t return until the weekend. Yes folks I was bored.

Bored. That was my emotion. Everyone had gone. I was all alone – 5 hours with nothing to do – then SAVED…the tv was fixed Hallelujah!!!! (By professionals this time!)

The day was slow – here’s how it went!

-I had the tasty vegetarian option of chicken soup
-Watched a good movie – David returned home mid-way
-We waited for a cheesy advert to finish – which turned
out to be a movie
-Enjoyed the musical talent of the killer plant in Little
Shop of Horrors
-Watched Ross break his hand in Friends
-Went out for food in the anticipation of Scrubs
-Found out how to tip with Mr Bean
-Watched the hazards of golf on the roof in Scrubs
-Then…switched on the news, which finally brings us to
the point of this blog.

Now, after that our collective minds have gone blank – we don’t know where to start. It’s 11.11pm on the roof of the Deep Griha Cultural Centre. The moon is bright in a sky of twinkling stars; we are eating orange frutella and admiring the shadowy outline of the palm trees. Oh yes the blog… we seem to have gotten a little off track – if only you could see the palm trees you would understand. They however are not the point of this blog. The stars and the moon are not the point of this blog. The point of this blog starts with a man’s death.

On Thursday 8th June the murder of Al-Zarqawi hit news channels across the world. Al-Zarqawi was the self-proclaimed leader of al-Qaeda and long-time ally of Osama Bin Laden. He was an evil man, but without any thought to his family or friends – yes he was human – his death was broadcast as ‘a great success’. The thing we can’t understand is why was he given the easy way out? Was dropping a bomb on his head really the best form of punishment that we could think up?

Wouldn’t it have been more detrimental to him to be locked up in a cell for the rest of his life and having to watch everything he has fought to destroy, rise up in triumph?

When did our world start to distinguish between a murder that is considered right by society’s standards and one that is considered wrong by the same standards? Who gave anyone the right to play God? Isn’t it right that we have the power to arrest and give punishment but not the right to take a life? Just because terrorists take this route do we have to conform to their ways? If we do aren’t we just as bad? We teach our children not to hit back – why don’t we teach ourselves the same lessons? We tell our children to walk away but then we go and blast people with fucking bombs. What example are we setting to future generations? "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." —Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003 – George Bush

The way we choose our words can be very important as to how we perceive ourselves. If we say ‘we are determined to beat them’ with the possible connotation of kill, is that not just sugar-coating the fact the we are going to take more lives. Mr Blair must have spent time choosing his words carefully so as not to be seen as the executioner.

The second point of this blog starts with the little runny thing at the bottom of the news channel. We caught a glimpse of a tiny piece of information. We waited for it to re-appear through ‘world news’, ‘entertainment’, ‘sports’, ‘health’, ‘commercial’ and finally around came ‘science’.

“Scientists are developing a new way of tackling HIV by creating a drug that blocks the assembly of virus cells.”

That was it. Potentially, there is an opportunity to save the lives of 40.3 million people. Where do we go from here? The death of 1 man took over at least 3 news channels (more world-wide), the possibility to cure millions of lives was given a second or 2 running along the bottom of 1 of them.

We would say that developing a vaccine for HIV would be the greater achievement however the media seems to think that death is the answer. Mr Blair would at least seem to spend more time choosing his words about situations where as Mr Bush says “I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right."

Esther & David (& Hans…sort of)

"I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God." —George W. Bush, ABC's 20/20, Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005

Smoking Kills - But You Knew That Already

2006-06-09T05:04:00.000-07:00

Smoking. This topic is a prickly one. It’s possibly more controversial than my last blog on God. With God you have theories and few facts. With smoking you have facts.

OK, lets not beat around the bush. Smoking. Fatal. Maybe. OK.

I could go on with statistics and estimates and symptoms and alternatives and la dee da! Bla! Bla! Bla! You’ve heard it all before. The message is everywhere, even on the side of cigarette packets themselves. So what I’ve never understood is why people do it. Why start? Why let all that money go towards something that IS making you more and more unfit and POSSIBLY could be killing you, shortening your life on this planet.

Why the bloody hell would anybody want to do that?

It’s something I don’t understand. But lets see if we can figure it out shall we.

OK, first to all the smokers I know reading this. Don’t worry. I will not reveal any of your names, or how much you smoke as I know that the information must be kept from people who are closest to you, mostly parents I find, and I will not reveal your names. Although on that thought why keep the facts from them? Are you embarrassed? Ashamed? I don’t know. I hope you have the reason handy.

THIS IS NOT A BLOG THAT IS GOING TO LECTURE AND TELL YOU TO STOP! YOUR LIFE. YOUR CHOISE. ALL I WANT TO DO IS UNDERSTAND THE CHOISE TO SMOKE.

I myself have never taken so much as a single draw. If I did maybe that would be my start but I don’t get the decision to start on the slippery slope.

Hm…random memory here. One of my friends of old, John Seater. First made friends with him during Swimming Club. We were the only guys there and in S2 it kind of explains why we went. Anyhow, we were friends for a few years. Then we started to drift apart, just naturally, no real incident springs to mind. Our friends became different, our personalities and lifestyles too. The last time we saw each other I was climbing on a bus. We were still people who were keeping the friendship alive but we both knew that our lives were a bit too different to do anything more than occasionally meet in a café and swap funny stories. He promised to phone about his house being free the next week, he said “See ya’ Man!” and I replied “Talk to you later.” Got on the coming bus and was away. He didn’t phone me. I didn’t phone him. Our lives parted ways pleasantly enough.

But there was a point, running up to our final parting when I realised he’d lost all respect for my views on things. In Hunter’s Square in Edinburgh, between 2 puffs of the cigarette, he said the throw away comment of “Wait till I get you addicted to these things.”

Why is this story relevant? This story is only relevant up to a point. It questions what kind of person feels that they need the artificial calming effects of smoking. Before coming to India I thought it must be people that were insecure and couldn’t deal with life’s realities on their own. Part of me, even in the face of the evidence, still believes this.

But then I had a look at some people I know and I am friends with some of them. Some are here in India with me, some are back in Scotland. I will not name anyone but each one is a person who I know.

Person 1. Male. He is inwardly insecure and immature. Possibly makes up stories in order to create a life he doesn’t have. He is an attention seeker. Smoker.

Person 2. Female. Irritating, very insecure and scared. If she misses a bus stop by one stop she will run up flapping her arms like it’s the end of the world. Won’t let people into her house unless you give her a week’s warning to tidy up (no joke, a week! You can’t even pop in to use the toilet if you happen to be in the neighbourhood). One of the most insecure, unsure, timid people I’ve ever known. Despite this she wants to be seen. It feels like she wants to prove to herself that she does have friends. Non-smoker.

Person 3. Female. She is another quiet, insecure person who walks around with her head down staring at the ground. She speaks in a very quiet voice and never repeats anything if you didn’t catch it the first time. She seems to view her own opinions on things as irrelevant and seems to be in a constant state of quiet fear and stress. Non-smoker

Person 4. Female. She is a highly religious Catholic. She is confident and is willing to tell me that I am talking rubbish if she thinks I am. Loves a good laugh as well as a good session about other people. Smoker

Person 5. Male. He is also highly religious. Loves to laugh and argue for God whenever the topic arises. He is confident around people and loves to make people laugh. Loves “Friends” to the point of silliness. Non-smoker.

Person 6. Female. She comes from a solid background. Her parents constantly try to get her to stop smoking using a lot of different methods. She herself has thought about quitting. Her boyfriend used to be against it. Despite this she still smokes. Smoker.

Person 7. Female. Comes from a family of smokers. Her parents encouraged her to smoke and she has 2 brothers both who are heavy smokers. She is also a talented actress and loves to be centre stage. Want to guess this one? Your wrong. Non-smoker.

Person 8. Male. He is secretive about his past and his plans for the future, except when he’s around the few people he seems to really trust. He was hit as a child and that messed him up a little bit. He is a heavy drinker and, scarily enough, claims to feel better after he has run so hard that he has to stop and throw up. In larger groups, when he’s not drunk, he laughs and jokes and manages to put everyone around him at ease. Non-smoker.

Lets compare these 8 people and see if we can figure out a pattern. I apologise if anybody think they recognised themselves and were offended in any way.

Here are some theories as to why people start to smoke.

What if people smoke because they are insecure and can’t deal with Life properly? This is not true. People 2 and 3 are both insecure but nether smoke. On the other hand people 4 and 6 are both confident and smoke. What if confidant people smoke? Person 1 isn’t confident and does smoke, while person 5 is confident and doesn’t smoke.

Maybe it’s background. Em…lets see. Person 6 is pushed away from smoking and does smoke. Person 7 is pushed towards smoking and doesn’t smoke. What if people go the opposite way from where they’re pushed? Again this doesn’t stand up as No. 7’s brothers smoke, having been pushed into it. Most of the non-smokers come from non-smoking families and don’t smoke, happy to keep to the family tradition. No. 7 came from a smoking family and doesn’t smoke. No 6 comes from a non-smoking family and does smoke. So its not background then

Take a minute to re-read that paragraph, as it’s a bit confusing.

Personality? No 4 is confident, religious, loves to laugh and is a smoker. No 5 is also confident, religious, loves to laugh and is a non-smoker. No. 3 is unsure of herself and is a non-smoker, while No. 1 is unsure of himself and is a smoker. Lets face it, all sorts of personalities smoke. So it’s not that ether.

Gender? OH PLEASE! No way. Now we’re getting silly! No.1 is a smoking male. No.8 is a non-smoking male. No.4 is a smoking female. No.7 is a non-smoking female. Lets think of possibilities that might achtely be a reason shall we?

To fit in? WITH WHO?! You have to leave the room and go outside to smoke. A smoker smells of smoke afterwards, a smell viewed as disgusting by the non-smoker community. Completely anti-social! Anyone who thinks that smoking helps them “fit in” is not only kidding themselves, but must have a major inferiority complex to think that they need to smoke in order to fit in.

Hm… No.8 drinks and is a non-smoker. No.2 does nether. No.6 does both. I do not, however have an example in my life of a tea-total smoker, but I’m sure they exist as well. So its not connected with drink.

OH! COME ON! IF I CAN FIGURE OUT IF GOD EXISTS SHURLY I CAN FIGURE OUT WHY PEOPLE SMOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You, know, I’m not sure I can. If I think of all the people who smoke I can’t pinpoint the reason. I’d say that Person 1 smokes to cover insecurities, but people 2 and 3 live with their insecurities smoke free and No. 3 is the most insecure of the 3 people. I’d understand if person 7, coming from the family of smokers, smoked but she doesn’t! It seems you can’t guess whether someone is a smoker or not. They continue when they get addicted but why does someone start?

Why? Why? Why?

There is one person that I would like to name and I hope that he will forgive me for naming him but as far as I can see he doesn’t hide his smoking habit from anyone. Hans

Hans smokes to deal with the “accumulated shit” as he himself puts it and the more I see what he does in his job, the more I understand why he feels the need to light up. He is confident and passionate about his beliefs on things but he has a hard job ahead of him and has had a hard job in the past. I respect what he does and how he does it and if he needs to calm down via a cigarette then that’s fine. I kind of understand why. But the rest of them, coming from Scotland with their varied lives, I don’t understand why they smoke.

It’ll just have to remain one of Life’s little mysteries.

Sorry folks, but there’s only one thing I have to say here.

Smoking Kills. But you knew that already. Sorry but there’s no new information in this blog.

David Lyon. Non-smoker.

The Chaos Within - Saraswathi's Dance

2006-06-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I walked into Sahara with two med students from Canada, Aisha and Kim, and my mates from Scotland here for a quick visit, Andy Mac and Kirsty. As I walked through the door I looked left and raised my hand to greet Ashok in the men's ward as I have been doing for the last few months. The bed was empty.

I knew. But I had to ask.

"Errol where's Ashok?"

Errol smiled.

"Has he gone home?"

"He's gone home only baba. He died last evening."

Fuck!

"Don't worry about it so much Hans. He is ok now na. He was in so much pain."

Ashok had danced not two weeks ago with his wife Ashvini. He was so thrilled that he didn't just raise his hands to come greet me, he sat up and walked up to me to shake my hand.

"I'll come to you today."

The dancer was gone.

It was a tough day.

I will miss him.

Errol and I talked about how important it is not to get emotionally involved with clients. Ashok is not a DISHA client. He was my friend.

Errol and I talked about how important it is not to get emotionally involved with clients. He married Anjali and is looking after her three children.

Errol and I talked about how important it is not to get emotionally involved with clients. Last morning Saraswathi died and I cried.

Yes. She is gone. On Tuesday she smiled. Errol had shaved her head because there was lice about, and I bent over and whipped off my bandana and said 'look Saraswathi, we are like twins' and she smiled through her oral thrush. It was faint and I looked at Lata to confirm my hope that it was a smile and Lata smiled and nodded her head.

I went to Sahara to collect her body. Errol had to pack her in the white sheets before I got there to prevent infection. We then uncovered her face so that I could say goodbye. I squished down her weeping eyes. They were dry no longer. Dead bodies leak. Remember? When I picked her up to carry her to the Deep Griha ambulance she was light. I could have carried her alone.

We sat - Maya and I, with Chris, my English mate from Goa who had just got off the bus, and as a testament to who he is, came with me to collect Saraswathi - in the ambulance with her laid out gently at our feet. It was good to have someone to talk to.

Soon, we were back in the gully that had seen us wash Nagesh's dead body in January. Saraswathi's daughter rushed up to both Maya and Me and hugged us. Just for that moment we were man, woman and child. How random. How real. How much this little kid and her brother have had to face in six months.

The wailing and the histrionics that accompany a death in the community followed as expected. We washed her body. This time my whole team did it. Not just the HIV+ team members, and Avinash.

I didn't have much to do, and Maya had already washed her feet, but how could I not wash Saraswathi's feet... so I did, again.

She was burned like her husband was... and is now ash. Chris reckons she was watching it all and thinking, 'no more pain, don't cry for me. I am all right now.'

On the way back from the crematorium I noticed that both Maya and Lata were extremely quiet. As the team got down and trooped upstairs, I ordered them to me sternly. And fuck, they held on to me and silent tears started to fall. I cannot fathom the strength it takes these two people to do what they do every day. They give of themselves, again and again and again, and what... do they see their end every time a client dies? I don't know. I hugged them both to me, and reassured them that they have DISHA now. They have Deep Griha. They have me.

Errol and I talked about how important it is not to get emotionally involved with clients. Lata and Maya are not my clients. They are not just on my team. They are not just my friends. They are my gurus. They have been and they always will be, and together with Errol they give me life every day. They make me dance.

Last night Paul, Chris and I stayed the night with Errol and Anjali and little Teju. As we lay down to sleep, I remember reaching out and grasping his hand and just holding it.

This afternoon we were at Sahara again for the DISHA - Sahara Carrom tournament. We played for an old cup that was donated to Deep Griha and sat gathering dust in a cupboard. The final was an all Sahara affair. The two DISHA teams were eliminated in the first round. Avinash and Meera, Team 1 and Shankar - an HIV affected kid - and I, Team 2.

The music blared. Little Kumar started dancing. He has great moves. Stevie and Katie joined in. The place was alive. And as I watched them I thought of Ashok's last dance and the question Malik asked me last night as he inquired about Saraswathi's funeral.

"How was Saraswathi's Dance?"

It was a good dance. She had some great moves. And we'll dance them until we can dance no more.

DOES GOD EXIST?

2006-06-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

DOES GOD EXIST?

Interesting question isn’t it. Yes or No. One of these answers is correct. One of these answers is wrong. It’s a 50/50 chance of guessing right. It’s a 50/50 chance of guessing wrong. People have gone for both answers right through history. If we ignore the fact that God has been defined and re-defined many thousands of times, it still boils down to that one question. If the correct answer is Yes then many people must have got further answer’s wrong but before you can decide who He/She/It/They are you first must make up your mind about that simple, 50/50 question. Does God Exist?

Well? Does He?

Let’s take a look at Life and attempt to finally answer the question that has plagued mankind since somebody paused to wonder why he was at the top of the food chain, while his hunting partner was eaten by a lion. He must have frowned and thought “I rule the Earth. WHY? Is it to do with some higher being? Lets call him God. Does God exist?”

Well let’s attempt to answer the question now, shall we?

OK

Take 3 theoretical cases.

Case Study 1. A girl is born in Scotland to a happy family. She goes to school, gets life long friends. She became a reasonably successful author and she spends some time doing a trip round the world. She lived to see her 100th birthday and died peacefully and happy a few months later

Case Study 2. A boy is born on the same day in the slums in India. He is HIV+ from day one. He is discriminated against and dies due to lack of treatment and understanding by the age of 4. Given treatment he would have lived to 56 and would have spent a lot of time working in a call centre.

Case Study 3. Another boy is born in New York. To a loving family that have already sighed him up to the best school money can afford. Despite doctor’s efforts he dies due to complications at birth.

Unfair? I’d say so.

Look at the lives these people were destined to live. Supposing they’d all lived, their lives and opportunities were drastically different just because of where they were born and to whom. And yet, one lived, one died of medical problems and one, essentially, was killed by the society that he was born into.

Here we have to draw a conclusion that we already know.

Life is Unfair.

OK, so you already knew that. Well it’s a big step to figuring out the question - Does God Exist? The fact is going to help us get an answer of Yes or No.

OK, we have to ask ourselves if Life is unfair why is it unfair. Why would God allow one to die and one to live? Why wouldn’t He give everyone the same chance? Or if that would be boring give people different chances, but for crying out loud, give them some chance. Look back at our case studies. The baby dieing at birth didn’t get much of a shot. Why’d He take him and let the Scottish woman live to 100?

For those who answered No to “Does God Exist?” that is the very simple answer. He doesn’t and life is a random thing that happened in the Universe. End of story. Next blog please.

For those who answered Yes to “Does God Exist?” there is a very common answer that is rolled out. It is an explanation that people give to you on a plate without really thinking about it. It is this

Everything is part of a large bold plan. It’s not our place to question it. Just sit back and accept that He will get to the point soon enough.

Personally I think this is a nice way of not answering the question. If it’s all a big plan then why’s He taking so long to get to the bloody point? I’ve heard of beating around the bush but this is ridiculous!

And think about any plan you’ve ever made. A plan is something you make in order to achieve a set goal or goals. For example, if you go into a supermarket you plan is to get everything on your shopping list. You have the plan to go down aisle 1 for the bread, and aisle 3 for you fish, missing out aisle 2, as you know that nothing you need is there. Then you continue to work your way through the store right up till aisle 31 – ice cream. And think about it. You don’t go down aisle 1; head for 31 and troop back to 3 do you. The reason everyone goes through a supermarket methodically is the same. To save time and effort

This is what a plan is. It is something you make to get your goal(s) done in the quickest, easiest and most efficient way possible.

Honestly. A student’s exam timetable. A robber’s plan to rob the bank. Driving to the cinema. Planning for an interview. A mechanic fixing a car. A builder building a house. An author planning a story. A minister planning a sermon. A traveller planning a route round a country. A dressmaker altering a dress. A team playing football. Anyone who makes a plan is making it in order to obtain a certain objective in the quickest, easiest and most efficient way possible.

Right. OK. So now that we can think about what a plan is lets have a look at the argument again. And then compare it to what a plan is.

Everything is part of a large bold plan. It’s not our place to question it. Just sit back and accept that He will get to the point soon enough.

A plan something you make to get your goal(s) done in the quickest, easiest and most efficient way possible

Hm…. Even if we accept that there is a final goal you’d have thought that he might have got to his point by now. How long has he had now?! Unless something has happened along the way this argument is just a way of not answering the question and is rolled out way too quickly and easily.

WAIT A SECOND!!!! You just said, “Unless something has happened” What does that mean?!

Ok, what if God did exist but then he died?

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

God could be mortal.

If God did create us then its more probable to assume that the creature is mortal rather than immortal. We have no evidence whatsoever that immortality is even possible. Maybe he caught the God’s version of the plague and died.

Why does he have to live forever to be God?

And if God could conceivably have an end, what about its beginning.

Where did God come from?

OK, you take a Mummy God and a Daddy God and if they love each other very much they will create a Baby God.

WHAT!!!!! BABY GOD!!!!!!

Hang on, stay with me here. What if we’re some baby God experiment that after he lost in the ‘Create Life competition’ to the Science Geek God, who created something better, shelved the earth and forgot about us. If we define God till the end of this paragraph as our creator, what if God is actually a little green professor called Quje from the Planet Zog?

But whether it was Quje or a big baby mystical being it is at least possible that the creature has a beginning, middle and an end to His life. Or maybe he had a beginning, middle and an end to his life. Hm… Think about this for a second here. He planned to get to a point, died before he did, and his little creation was simply left to get on with it, spinning into a world of Unfairness.

Does God Exist? Maybe a third answer be – He did, but doesn’t any longer.

Hm… That would be in the ‘No’ category but it brings me to the realisation that our question needs a slight addition in order to remain a 50\50 chance.

Does God Exist NOW?

Well? Does he?

OK, let me boil this down for a second. If this is a large plan I don’t think he’s still around because he is taking such a long time to come to the point. It is possible that at the beginning something had a plan but either died or got bored with us and moved onto better things leaving us to our own defences. If this is the case then maybe we should have a holiday celebrating his birthday and stop doing all this religious jazz as there is nobody listening.

But what if there is somebody listening? Lets think of alternatives. If he is here he is obviously doing something more than simply getting to the end of a large plan. If he is here he must be doing something more or something different.

But What?

Lets think. Supposing for a second here that it is Quje from Planet Zog. Maybe he is getting a lot of valuable information on Life from his little experiment that is benefiting Life elsewhere in the Universe and in order to get accurate data he needs life to think of God. Any ‘miracle’ that people have supposedly seen has simply been Quje getting a little more information that helps life on Planet Zog to run a little more smoothly. This explanation atchetly fits like a glove if you think about it. Life is Unfair, simply because its random, but Quje defined as ‘God’ because he created us, does exist.

Strangely enough I feel that people who originally answered ‘no’ to “Does God Exist?” will be more drawn to this conclusion than people who answered ‘yes’. Nobody likes to be taken for a fool and in order to accept this conclusion you need to dramatically redefine God as a small green mortal being and realise that you’ve spent all that time in church preying to him. Its easier to say that this conclusion is rubbish than atchetly consider the possibility and as humans always take the easy way out of any situation, anyone who believes in God is not going to give this idea a second thought.

Go back to the highly improbable immortal, mystical being. What if he has lost control somehow and has no way of influencing anything? Well what is the point in being there at all Mr God? If all He is doing is watching helplessly on then he might as well move on. If this is the case then the answer to “Does God Exist Now?” is “Well, yes, but he might as well not be for all the good he’s doing.”

Good? We’ve already examined the possibility that God is mortal. Why does God have to be good?

What is God is bad?

What if he lies back in a big armchair watching us and laughing at all the unfairness and suffering? This idea doesn’t really bare thinking about. Life is Unfair and ‘God’ is getting a jolly good belly laugh out of it as he watches a painful birth on his computer and then, as the child is still crying with pain, he hits delete. This sends shivers down the spine, the more you think about it.

Going back to Mr Quje from Zog for a minute. What if his information is actually for evil?

That’s a horrible answer. “Does God Exist Now?” “Well Yes, but he’s evil.”

Like the idea of Mr Quje believers will dismiss this as rubbish as they don’t want to think they’ve spent all that time in church preying to someone who is evil. He’s laughing harder still whenever people praise him. It doesn’t bare thinking about.

Lets face it. Anyone who firmly believes in God needs God to be an all forgiving, all good, immortal being. People believe that this is possible even though there is no proof that any of it is possible. All forgiving? Everyone has something that they would not be able to simply look over and forgive. All good? Nobody is good all the time. And nothing we know of is immortal, nor is there any sort of proof that immortality is even possible.

I find this pretty little picture of God as very, very, very, extremely, highly improbable, so close to impossible that the line between the 2 is virtually non-existent. If you want to make the leap of faith and take those odds be my guest, but you wouldn’t take them in a casino where your money’s at stake, why take them now when the way you live your life’s at stake?

Despite this I think many believers reading this are still going to take that tiny atom of a chance that the all-good, forgiving, immortal being exists, rather than think about the more probable alternatives. One I would like to put forward here. It was mentioned at the beginning but lets think about it for a moment.

What if the answer to “Does God Exist?” is, quite simply “No”?

Lets go back to our thinking hunter wondering why he rules the earth. Evolution and chance provide an alternative explanation. We just did. It was a race to rule the earth and we won. Then when we had we wondered why we had. Then humans created this thing called “God” to explain the fact they had got there first. Throughout history Gods have come and gone with many festivals created, many as societies decided to merge Gods together. In order to make the fantasy more believable customs and stories were made up and over time people looked at one another wondering if they were true and many people decided that they were creating faith. They decided that they were because they couldn’t believe that something like Life could possibly be random and people believe this to this day.

Many years ago this is how God and the whole mess was created. This is the start of God

“We’re in charge of the Earth. Life is full and plentiful. This can’t be random. Lets believe something created it shall we? Lets call it God. He needs to be good because nobody will want a bad God. He needs to be immortal because nobody will want a mortal God. He needs to NOT be Quje from Zog, just another random little life form because we need something far more powerful than ourselves. Where did he come from you ask? Em…well if he is immortal maybe he didn’t have a beginning. OH! Here's a good idea! Be good and he will reward you, be bad and he will punish you. What did you say? You’ve never seen anyone being rewarded or punished? When could it happen? Em.. OH what if it happens after you die? Yes, that’s good. Sorry what did you say? Bodies are here and the good and bad get the same. Em…well, I know, why don’t we have things that leave the body? A theoretical thing. Lets call it a sole shall we and then God rewards or punishes your sole. Yes that fits.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the start of God.

This is a nice flexible basic principle for religion. It allows you to have as many Gods as you want, name them, have all sorts of stories about the good and the bad and allows each new religion that comes along to have their God(s) controlling as much or as little as they see fit. Out of all the religions these are the basics with all the enjoyable little extras added on around it. Some even got more Gods into the mix so that they could have bad Gods as well as good ones, as well as giving some of their Gods colourful beginnings. Going so far as having the odd God death appearing in the history of religion. Lets face it. As long as you have your one big, powerful, all good, immortal God, why not have some fun creating loads of others where you can then break all the rules from what people want in the God at the top.

Not every religion does this to be fair, some simply stick to the one improbable, immortal, all good guy somehow, inconceivably, controlling everything at once. But the principle is the same; they just ignored the idea of other Gods although most religions that I have any knowledge of at the very least seem to have some sort of bad guy.

And the idea of a sole is a nice touch. There is nothing to be seen in this life that would suggest reward or punishment by a God, but if we have an essence that goes somewhere after you die, you can then make the next life whatever you want it to be. Create your own punishments and rewards for the bad and the good and hope that nobody asks the question of where the dog goes or what happens to the innocent newborn baby.

So, like any good conclusion, I need to return to the original question. “Does God Exist?”

Like I said, I don’t think it’s the all-good, immortal being. Nobody can be good all the time, and I find it hard to see how something could not die eventually. The all-bad immortal being is equally as unlikely, but anyone who wants to take the odds of the good one, needs to also take the same odds for the bad one. One might say there is good in the world, but then there is also bad and life in general is unfair. Quje from Zog I find fractionally more believable, but only because the solution fits without too much force. In order to make a God fit you need to add something (i.e. a sole) that He can reward or punish, as well as creating a reason why an immortal good guy allows life to be unfair and why he’s hiding. In order to make Quje fit all you need to do is add his flying ship orbiting the Earth and your there.

The idea that a large mortal being created the earth and then died is a possibility (or went away, or forgot about us ect). The atual circumstances are not important. The point is that we are now on our own and can now dispense with religion. But if he has gone away then the answer to “Does God Exist Now?” would be a “yes, but he might as well not be.”

I find it highly probable that Humans simply created God out of a necessity to explain themselves. This argument is defiantly in the “No” pile

So finally back to the question – “Does God Exist?” hm…. I’m doubtful. Maybe he did.

Does God Exist Now? – I find myself undecided.

Does God Exist Now And Here?” I feel that this might at last be the right, relevant, question and I have my answer. I’m unsure as to whether or not he did or does exist, and it is possible that he still exists and is somewhere else, floating around at some distant part of the Universe, but is he here and now, listening, helping?

Sorry folks. The answer is “No”

David Lyon

The Big Difference

2006-05-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, back in Pune and it feels like I never left. When we first came home, the house seemed a little empty - we were the first ones back from travelling and there were only 4 of us there. We soon got used to that and enjoyed the space! First time back in a rickshaw and it felt normal - going along the bumpy roads , onto "death road", straight to MacDonalds...or was it Pizza Hut?? I don't remember. Nevermind, the point is I never noticed how much Pune has become home - it's strange to think of what life is going to be like when I go back to Scotland. My mum keeps telling me she thinks she is going to "see a different lassie" - I think she is right.

What I mean is when I was talking to my friend from Scotland the other day she was going on about how she really wanted this new top that she had seen but couldn't afford it, I asked how much it was - 40 pounds! For a top! She kept telling me that her life would be ruined if she couldn't get the money for it because she needed it to go with her new jeans for a big night out! I swear this girl has at least 50-60 tops that she could choose from. 20 minutes she went on. Was I ever really like that?? Unfortunately yes - I was - and not so long ago either. After I spoke to her I thought about how people in Scotland are compared to the people I am working with just now. Here's what I found - most people in Scotland - well not just in Scotland but all over Europe, the US etc etc - have more than they need, no? But, we are always wanting more, constantly complaining about what we don't have and are never satisfied. I think we must spend about 3/4 of our lives unhappy and complaining.

Now - the people I am working with don't have much. I have never once - in my whole time in India - heard anyone complaining about wanting more. Not once. They live their lives thankful for what they have rather than obsessing about what they don't have. They are happy and smiling and laughing all the time - it doesn't matter what possessions they own.

Imagine what a life filled with laughter must be like - you don't need the best of everything to be happy - if anything it's going to make you more miserable because when something goes "out of fashion" you're going to have to get the "latest trend" - if you can't afford it - BAM - you feel like your life is ending. What a way to live your life!

You take a look around this community and you can see people are positive about their lives, positive about things they have in their lives. They don't constantly complain about every little thing. What do you think the world would be like if we all lived life like that?

An after thought - Sometimes life can be heart-breaking - especially out here when you see so many people - like Saraswathi - such a beautiful woman in so much pain. At least now she is free from that. Everyone that knew her can't do anything more but remember her and pick themselves up and carry on. And that's just what they do. They push on and keep fighting this battle.

Esther

Back in Pune, back at work!

2006-05-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Pune, and have been for the past week, and as I've said to Hans 'it's all a blur', and it bloody well is! Coming back to the house on Tuesday was wierd, especially since I'd never got any sleep the night before on the bus comin up from Goa! Also when we were stood outside for half an hour, because the new volunteer - Shasma' was asleep! But when we got in the house, everything had changed - the walls had been painted, new lights were installed and the tv wasn't working!! But we got through - Esther, Stevie and I, and we slept for most of the day, the lazy buggars that we are!!

Also, I have never seen my room so bloody clean in all my life, everything had been cleared out into room 4 (where everyone was to put their stuff during the break) and all that was in my room were 2 beds a table and a cupboard, with nothing in it!! And now that I'm back, I still haven't unpacked and it's been a week already that I've been back! I'm so lazy, but I am still getting over the general bluriness (I know your laughing Hans :) )
But seriously, when we first arrived at the house after the break, it didn't seem like our house at all, and I nearly lost the way with the rickshaw driver from Mohan's corner shop! Typical me eh! But there are now guards up on all the balconies, which was quite a shock, and the whole of the outside had been re-painted! It was just madness!

But a week on, I am back at work, and the bluriness was just ridiculous - Ramtekadi had all changed - there were ceiling fans, and the cupboards had been moved upstairs, which also seemed surreal when we went up for our lunch of omletter sandwiches!! I like omlettes!! When we got to Sushma's creche in the morning, all the kids did were cry and baby Rahul who is usually smiling, could not stop crying!! But we soon got them up playing trains! A popular game in that creche! Then it was time for chai, and that reminded me of being back at work, which I was! Then the afternoon came and we were told that the balwadi wasn't happening due to new kids, so the balwadi assistant took us to her house for some Thumbs Up, and I've seen such an audience in my life, all the locals were round for a peek-a-bo!

Then coming home, it seemed like we had never left Ramtekadi in the first place! But it was evident that we did!

Philip Ross

Positive Voices

2006-05-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

On Thursday there was an event called ‘Postive Voices’ at the Ambedkar Bhavan. The concept? People living with HIV / AIDS were given a platform to address a panel of representatives from government agencies and hospitals.

The DISHA family turned out in force. The fieldworkers looked immaculate in their matching sarees. Avinash and Hans were smartly dressed in white. With assorted friends, offspring and volunteers coming along too, we numbered perhaps 30 people out of the 200 or so who attended.

Several HIV+ speakers came and addressed the hall. First up was a young homeless woman. I missed her name. She spoke in Marathi, as did everyone else. I understood next to nothing, but I could still sense her passion, and her despair. Other speakers followed.

The panel then had their say. Again I understood very little, but their body language was defensive. They faced some tough questions in the Q&A session at the end, some of them coming from the DISHA staff.

Two small boys were sat on the chairs behind us. The boys started arguing. “Shhh!” I said. They laughed. They boys started fighting. I gave them an old-fashioned look. The boys laughed harder. Hey ho. In the end I kept them happy by taking a couple of photos with my digital camera and showing them the snaps.

The session came to a close and there was the usual networking and number swapping. Hopefully everyone got something from the event.

The next morning a group of us went to visit Sahara. Cyrus wanted to shoot some video footage, perhaps to be used for fundraising. We were all enthralled as Errol sat patiently and told us his story. More on that another time, but the man is amazing. He and his team are saints. As I checked the video camera monitor, It looked like Errol had a halo. That should come as no surprise to anyone.

Later we returned to the DGS office. After a while I popped out to grab a quick snack from a nearby food stall on Dhole Patil Road. On the way I passed the woman who’d spoken at Positive Voices. She was accompanied by the two boys – her sons, evidently. They were all dressed in the same clothes as they’d been wearing the day before, as was I. The difference was that they’d slept on the street while I’d stayed overnight with friends after a dinner and a few drinks. I waved a hello to the boys – they seemed to be getting on better than yesterday, fortunately. They gave smiles in return.

At the food stall I bought some chapati bhaiji to take away. As I was leaving, The woman and her sons were walking by. Suddenly I didn’t feel very hungry any more. I handed over the parcel of food. “Can you use this?”

I looked at her two sons. Shit - I’d better get some more.

The pulav had just finished, so I picked up two wada pav and gave them to the boys. I collected another chapati bhaji for myself, said goodbye, and walked the two minute journey home, deep in thought.

As I opened the door to my flat I picked up the Indian Express. Straight away I saw a story about the Positive Voices event.

“‘Why doesn’t the government help us?’ It’s a living hell for HIV patients who cry out for help” ran the headline. There, in the first paragraph of the story, were Surekha’s words – she had a name now! – translated into English.

“Mee sadak var rahte. Mala HIV zhale aahe. Mazha gunha nahi. Pan mala rickshawale martat. Station var police hakaltat. Shasan amhala ka madat karat nahi.”(I stay on the footpath. I am HIV positive due to no fault of mine. But autorickshaw drivers trouble and the police kick me out of the station premises. Why doesn’t the government help us?)

Surekha can speak for herself. I hope people will listen.

The Chaos Within - See what it can do...

2006-05-23T05:11:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday last Milind died at Sahara.

Milind was a DISHA client. He came to us on the Friday. He lasted just five days. When I visited Sahara on the Monday he lay there and tried to smile his greeting. He hadn't met me before, and he was trying to thank us for taking care of him. Lata asked me to take a look at his chest x-ray... I'm no doctor but you pick things up after a while. The man's chest was a series of patches held tenuously together with strands that the TB hadn't got to.

I looked at Errol and he confirmed my feelings with a shake of his head. The next day I got the call.

"Baba he is gone."

Now, I hardly knew the man, and I didn't have a relationship with him like I have done with others... yet, for all of us on the team, Milind was not just another faceless one to die of HIV/AIDS related tuberculosis. He died because of stigma. Over and over again we tell of how stigma and discrimination doesn't allow for people to come forward early and declare their status, how people wait until they are so sick, that getting help, or any form of comfort for the pain overcomes their fear of stigma... the stage where you don't give a fuck what people think but you just want the pain to go away somehow. Milind was a 'classic' example of this. He had lived most of his adult life in Tadiwala Road. He had known about us since last year, but he had dared not come forward.

Milind was also more than a 'classic' example, his death once again underlined to us that 'every man's death' affects us, and that we should never 'send to ask for whom the bell tolls' because it does toll for us.

I met with the family and we discussed what was the best approach to the situation. His mother was distraught and could not take a decision, so her nephew stepped in, and after much procrastination decided that Milind's body would come home, the pujas would be conducted and then, it was off to the crematorium. I know that Lata had a major part to play in this decision and I am proud of her. She helped the family not only accept Milind's body, but also helped demystify HIV/AIDS - You can't get it from a dead body. The virus does not fly off in search for another host.

Paul was amazed at what he called 'turn-around' time. One minute we have a client at Sahara, and within a few hours he or she is ash.

Today I visited Sahara with Cyrus and Danny from Duke University, Paul, Natasha (my sister, not Smiler), Stevie, Esther (Link) and Shazma my brilliant little AISEC volunteer from Nairobi working with DISHA. Cyrus interviewed Errol, and although I had heard his story a few times before, he filled in a lot of the gaps, and it was great for all us to get an insight into how Errol works. How he ticks. And it isn’t the moon.

Walking upstairs I noticed that Errol had moved the woman's ward downstairs. Errol's team is depleted and this makes it easier to handle the clients.

Saraswathi was sitting up! Only just, but she was sitting up. Her oral thrush is getting better and she is trying to speak. She is communicating with sounds now, not just her tired eyes, and shakes of her head. She is fighting.

Errol said, "Don't get too excited baba, long way to go."

Yes... whatever the outcome though, she has improved and Errol and his team had done an amazing job with little or no resources - "we have love na baba, see what it can do..."

Yeah, see what it can do.

The Chaos Within - 'We'll do it baba...'

2006-05-16T04:36:00.000-07:00

I went away last week.

Four days in Goa. The most difficult decision amounted to choosing a restaurant to eat at every night.

The beach, the sea, the waves, the pack of dogs (including tri-pod with his retractable legs), the company... I kept my phone on.

On my way back to Pune I contacted Errol, 'How is Saraswathi?'

'The same.'

I went to see her today. Her mum was there when I walked in. She sat by Saraswathi's side, stroking her legs, massaging them, straightening them out... this was the same woman who put Saraswathi in a room and willed her to die.

Nothing is ever the proverbial black and white is it? Layers, textures, its all so fucking complex.

Saraswathi responded better to me today. She can't speak because she continues to struggle with an oral thrush infection, but her waggling of the head has more purpose. It is more defined and readable.

She wears a powder blue shower cap now to keep the hair off her back. Her legs are dry like tinder. Her mother began to oil them as I left. I put my hand on the mum's shoulder and smiled. Saraswathi's daughter was smiling too. 'Mummy is getting better.'

I wish she was. I so fucking hope she is. It is still too early to tell. Errol and his team are doing all they can for her and her family visits almost every day. Their reaction to her at Sahara could confuse me but it doesn't. They want to make sure their daughter/sister is comfortable. The mother has however removed all Saraswathi's jewelry. Errol says this depressed Saraswathi more, but her mother does not seem to trust the Sahara staff to look after her daughter's gold trinkets. They can bathe her and feed her and medicate her but cannot be trusted with gold earrings.

Complex.

Errol was on a break today so I took him to the Shisha cafe to relax. After a couple of whisky and sodas he turned to me and declared that 'People think I am mad to be doing what I do.'

"I don't know how I could do anything else. God has saved me Hans and I have to serve him by serving the brothers and sisters that are dropped at my door."

He smiled. Sad. And then, happy.

"We'll do it baba. You and me. We'll change the way AIDS is looked at in Pune."

I nodded. We have to. The next six months are going to be busy. Deep Griha is still on holiday but Paul and I are using it to plan the months ahead. And Errol and his team are part of that plan.

Today my visit to Sahara included Smiler and her friend Sabha who had collected bed sheets and clothes and even the odd lady's purse!

They were particularly apologetic about the purses, but as Errol said 'my women clients would love a purse. They also should enjoy these things na.'

The bed linen will help and the old clothes, if they don't fit will be cut up and used as rags. Sahara always needs rags, if nothing else. There is a lot to mop up, there is a lot to soak up, there is a lot to wipe away.

"We'll do it baba. You and me. We'll change the way AIDS is looked at in Pune."

With the teams we have. The Mayas and the Salims, yes Errol we will.

Mixed Reactions

2006-05-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

Finally our travelling time has arrived. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Arambol, sun shining, waves crashing, wondering what's going on in Pune!! That's not right.

Me and Stevie have met some great people out here - when they ask what we are doing in India there is a mix of reactions. Some people think wow that's great, some think I don't think I could handle that and some people think Hmmm..... Ususally it takes a lot of explaining to get them to understand the work that we do. I said to one guy that I have great fun working in Pune and his answer was "how can you have great fun when you work in the slums??!"

My immediate reaction was "What the fuck?, How do you make someone who hasn't seen what I've seen understand?" So, I told him where I work it just like anywhere else. It has it's hard moments but I work with children with smiles that will brighten up your day, with adults who have more life in them than most people I know back home and with a group of people who are becoming the closest friends I will probably ever have. I then asked him "Can you say the same thing about anywhere you have worked?" His answer "No." That was it, just no.

Esther

The Chaos Within - Saraswathi II

2006-05-05T03:11:00.000-07:00

I visited Saraswathi this morning.

20 minutes before I got there one of Errol's client's expired. Tuberculosis. I was given a mask and rubber gloves.

"Come help us pack the body."

He was still warm.

Another client lay on the bed beside him.

"He is next. By this afternoon, maybe 2pm. Evening the latest."

This guy just lay there. His pulse was faint. His breathing was laboured. Tuberculosis was slowly claiming him too. He did not respond to our touch or words.

The other clients in the sputum positive ward: One slept soundly. Another watched us work as he combed his hair and gave himself a shave. And the other sat up and watched his fate unfold. There was no fear in their eyes. None that I saw anyway. Just... 'fuck it. That's me soon.'

We packed the dead body in under ten minutes. And then carried it out and laid it on the table to be claimed by his family.

The volunteers continued to paint and add finishing touches in the room next door.

I went up stairs to see Saraswathi. She was getting a sponge bath. She lay there stripped naked. Her skin pulled taut over her slender frame. She looked like a little boy. Breasts that had nursed three children had melted away. When she saw me her faced screwed up in pain. The ignominy of my presence? Can she be more humiliated? I stroked her head and left.

Errol spoke of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'

"Sometimes I just wish I had the stuff to end their suffering."

Saraswathi's eyes with her non-existent tears... fuck. I understand what he means.

In July I plan to spend a month with Errol with half of my team being trained in hands-on-care and 'packing' of dead bodies. There will always be unwanted and rejected people for us to learn from...

Everyone knows that Errol does not turn anyone away. A few months ago a pimp dropped off a young 17 year old. Her uterus was filled with pus. Even after she was sick she had been used to give clients oral sex at night. When the smell became overpowering and the pimp could no longer disguise her sickness, rather than abandon her on the side of the road and have the body traced back to him, he brought her to Errol. She died within three days. There was no one to claim her body.

Today Errol tells me that Saraswathi is worse somehow... and that she may have only 8 days left. I listened in silence. I went back upstairs and sat with her for a bit. She had retreated in to her distance. She didn't know I was there.

That call I dread can come at anytime now.

But I am not ready for it... I never will be.

The Chaos Within - Saraswathi

2006-05-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

Saraswathi... her hands are tied to the bed with a torn up silk sari.

Why? She is wasting away. She refuses to eat. Oral thrush... her throat is full of pus. She can't swallow. She can't talk. And the nasal feeding tube is so uncomfortable that she musters up the strength to rip it out. Solution - hands gently tied in a position that is not too uncomfortable...

Is that possible?

Well Saraswathi can't tell us.

She manages on occasion - if she feels like it - to get out a couple of words. A few days ago when Maya asked her if she recognised me, her eyes screwed up to cry, no words came out, and she said "Brother." As often as I can, I sit with her, and have convinced Errol that while I am with her that her hands can be released from her fine silk bonds.

Little pieces of me die when I am with her. She keeps looking at me and crying silent non-existent tears.

Before the feeding tube Errol gave her two weeks. Now she has improved a little. She is shitting again. It is a crude indicator that she is receiving nutrients.

What can we do for her? She is too weak to take ART. It will kill her. She weaves her fingers into mine... her grip remains surprisingly forceful. When we took her children to see her, again silent non-existent tears. Her three kids could not contain their own. Their mother is on the verge of life. She has been pushed there. We are trying to pull her back, but fuck... I dread the call.

I love this woman. The strength she displayed by picking up the pieces of her life after Nagesh died was inspirational. She used to smile at me with her crooked teeth and chat whenever we saw each other at the Nutrition Centre.

The last time I was at Sahara I could not manage more than a few moments with her. I could not ask for her hands to be untied. I only managed to stroke her head whisper a few words to her and walk away.

The Link volunteer team - one of the best bunch of kids we've had for ages - is painting Sahara in stages. They are bringing colour and life to the clients and a welcome distraction to Errol and his team. I don't think they realise how valuable their contribution is to a body of people - Errol and his team included - that are shunned by society.

On Monday when I parked the van and asked if it would be safe, one of the Sahara team quipped - "Everyone knows this is a home for HIV+ patients. They give us a wide berth. Your van is safe." We laughed. Fuck, we have to laugh.

Now that Sahara and DISHA have decided to work closer together - Deep Griha's governing board approved the proposal - there will be more laughter. More hard work. More tears. More little pieces that die.

Does the laughter resurrect the dead inside me? I don't know. It must.

Errol and I have laughed so much this last week. Especially when I ask people to guess how old he is... he's 48 and looks and dresses like he's in his mid 30s.

I hope Saraswathi smiles again. I hope she shows me her crooked teeth the next time I see her (tomorrow). I hope she speaks to me, even if it is to say that she is in pain.

Now that we can get food down her through the feeding tube, medicines follow. It will help with the oral thrush infection. Errol tells me on the phone everyday that she is improving “very, very slowly.”

Maya and Lata who visit her everyday - Saraswathi has decided that food and medication is more palatable from their hand - on rotation say the same thing. She is getting better.

I still dread the call.

4 ways to get HIV. PAY ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-05-04T01:52:00.000-07:00

HIV. I understand. Or at least I think I do. I have no hestiation in shaking the hand of a person living with HIV thoe I hesitate to write any names of people that I know are HIV+. "Did I ever have a problem shaking hands with a person living with HIV?" I hear you ask. The honest answer is that I don't know. Im not shure that I ever got the chance to find out. Befor coming to India I never had the oppertunity to shake hands with someone that I was aware was HIV+.

HIV can be transmitted through 4 methods.

HIV by the way stands for Human Immuno deficancy Virus. AIDS is Aquired Immuno Deficancy Syindrome.

The first is mother to child. As far as I am aware this is at the birth itself, not in the womb.Its to do with all the fluids flowing around at birth. Clearing it up can help reduse chances ect. But No1 is Mother to Child.

Way number 2 is shared needles. Useing clean ones would be advisable.

Then we come to 3 and 4.No1 is an unfortunate fact of life, a small little argument against the existence of God (but thats a hoal different can of worms and ill do another blog on it). No2 is just a sense of being careful. I myself have a phobia of needles and hardly need another reason for disliking them but there you go.

No 3 is shared blood. This needs explaining. In a word (or 2 words) it comes from 'fresh blood'. A car crash and one person with HIV bleeds into another without HIV, they can both be infected. Operations ect in hospitals with HIV+ blood can give an unefected person the virus.BUT if the blood is frozen or left out for a long period of time the virus will die.

NO 4, probibly the most famos of the causes is unprotected sex. This last issue, in my oppinion, is little more than a mini mine field of problems. It isn't even solved if both are HIV+ as clearly it doesn't matter with ways 2 and 3 (at least I don't think it matters. But what if ones worse than the other? somthing to find out I think)

Anyway, with unprotected sex there is the problem of point 1. In a sence these need to be taken together. Using a condom is the straight forward solution, especially if you are having sex only for plesure. But, the biological reason for sex is to make a new life, and if someone who lives with HIV and someone who doesn't want to start a family then there is a horrific question that needs asked.

Should they?

The honest answer is - I do not have a fucking clue. This, in my oppinion, is where all the mines are.

OK, let me show you this. A man has HIV. A woman does not have HIV. The risk is that the women will become HIV+ and then they will create a new life that will go through life being HIV+.

Is this fair?

Is it fair to deny the man a family because he got HIV? What if he got it through an operation on his leg afew years back. Is he to be denyed a family because there was a problem on his leg?!

Can you sit another human being down and tell them that they must not create a life of their own?

But what then about that purely innocent life that hasn't even grown into a twinckle in the mother's eye?

The word your looking for is shit. or fuck. or bugger. Or whatever word floats your boat.

AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pure mine feild in my oppinion with no helpful map to show you the way through.

Now can you tell me a 5th way? The answer is NO!

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO CONTRACT HIV!

Right. Swim with people living with HIV. Swim in a pool full of them you will not contract the virus. Kiss as many people with HIV as takes your fancy. Hell go for a world record attempt and see if your toung can get further down a throat than any other toung has ever done - you will not contract the virus. Get bitten by as many mosquitos and bugs as possible and you will not contract the virus (thoe still not recomended as other deseses like malaria might become a problem). Shared their toilet and you will not contract the virus. You got the freeking picture already?!!!???!!!???!!!???

THERE ARE ONLY 4 FUCKING WAYS.

Just in case youv been sleeping through this let me list the 4 ways.

No.1 Mother to Child. This is the one where the purely innocent suffer.

No 2. Shared needles.

No 3. Sharing fresh blood

No 4. Unprotected sex. The mine feild in my oppinion.

No 5. This does not exist. No what ifs? No what abouts? NO!NO!NO!NO! The 4 ways are listed above. How many times do I have to write this people!!!!!!!

PAY ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Theres alot of jazz about stigma ect but I think this has been enough for one blog but ill finish off by repeating the point of this blog -

No.1 Mother to Child. This is the one where the purely innocent suffer.

No 2. Shared needles.

No 3. Sharing fresh blood

No 4. Unprotected sex. The mine feild in my oppinion.

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

David Lyon

ps - Incase you didn't get it already

No.1 Mother to Child. This is the one where the purely innocent suffer.

No 2. Shared needles.

No 3. Sharing fresh blood

No 4. Unprotected sex. The mine feild in my oppinion.

THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Chaos Within - Palliative Care

2006-04-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

I just went downstairs to meet Saraswathi. Remember Nagesh? His wife.

She didn't recognise me. She sat on the chair staring into space. Her mother spoke for her.

I asked, "How are you?"

The mother replied, "She is fine."

Me: "Are you feeling ok?"

Mother: "She has fever."

I felt her forehead. She was running a slight temperature.

Me: "A little fever, yes."

Mother: "Yes, a little fever."

A week ago Lata informed me that Saraswathi's mum had taken her to Dapodi, about an hour from Pune, despite Lata's advice that Saraswathi required special care that we believe Sahara Care Home could provide.

Yesterday Maya reported that Saraswathi's condition had deteriorated and that her mother was refusing to bring her back to Tadiwala Road for us to assess her condition. All we had to go on was what Saraswathi's daughter, who had remained behind in the community, was able to tell us.

This morning I sent Maya and Avinash to Dapodi to persuade Saraswathi's mum to let her come back to us, so that we could send her to Sahara. Avinash is good at being persuasive. By late afternoon they were at the centre en route to Wagholi. I phoned up Errol and informed him that Saraswathi is in a very poor state and required his fullest attention.

After I put the phone down, I thought of the other clients at Sahara. Clients I had met on Tuesday when I took Mahrukh Bharucha - she directs a play I'm rehearsing for at the moment - to visit Sahara. She met Errol at Easter Lunch at my house and was taken with his passion and commitment that he wears so prominently on his multicoloured sleeve.

On that visit the impossible task that Errol, Malik, Salim & Co make possible was brought home to me once again. As I sat with a man who was ravaged by TB, trying to coax him to eat, I thought 'Fuck, how does Errol do this every day?!'

We spent just under an hour at Sahara, and by the end of it, Marukh had taken a peek into life in Pune as she had never seen before: HIV+ people left to die, HIV+ people struggling to survive, HIV+ people smiling their welcomes, HIV+ people reaching out with the hand that is not paralysed to shake our own, HIV+ people who help others recover, HIV+ people sitting down to sing songs of praise to God.

I was approached by a couple of board members of Deep Griha, Dr. Onawale and Dr. Chakranarayan to explore the option of opening up a DISHA Care Home. Although I wasn't in favour of the idea, I did do the baseline survey of care facilities available to People Living With HIV/AIDS in the city of Pune.

49 beds.

16 at Asha Kiran, run by the Roman Catholic Diocese.
7 at Naidu Hospital (Govt. Run).
26 at Sahara.

That's it.

1.8% of Pune's , 5,000,000 (approx) population is supposedly HIV+ according to NACO. That's at least 90, 000 people. The answer is 49 beds. This of course does not cover the facilities available at Sassoon General. There are beds and mats for those who have no where else to go, but there is little or no attention paid to the patient, and if you are HIV+ ... then brace yourself for the very strong possibility of being stigmatised against and treated like a... like a...

Lepers, and outcastes are treated better today than someone who is HIV+.

Private hospitals also have services available for PLWHA, but none of the hospitals focus on the compassion that PLWHA require, like Asha Kiran aspires to, and Sahara does.

Arguably, if you had the money, dying in a private hospital would be preferable to dying at Sahara. At a hospital you receive better pain management. What DISHA is trying to do is get funding for Sahara so that they can provide better pain management too, and together with their compassion for the client, I believe Sahara can provide a service that rivals the best in palliative care for PLWHA.

We will pay for Saraswathi so that she receives the best possible care that Sahara can provide, but we neither have the budget nor the hope of funding currently to help Errol and his team alleviate the pain of Sahara's other clients.

To this end, I am proposing to the governing board that Deep Griha works together with Sahara, rather than go down the road of providing palliative care ourselves.

This will also break the mould in the HIV/AIDS sector where organisations are working in isolation, protective of their funding and their HIV+ clients - the reason for their funding. The focus on the beneficiary is often lost, and sadly some organisations get on the HIV/AIDS bandwagon in order to provide employment for their staff.

The reason we operate only in Tadiwala Road is because Pathway (run by Project Concern International - PCI) works in both Ramtekadi and Bibwewadi, the other two slums that Deep Griha has served since 1975 and 1984 respectively. Deep Griha refers all HIV+ beneficiaries to Pathway in these two communities.

The focus must be the beneficiary! In this case, the person living with HIV/AIDS.

The sooner we wake up to working together, the sooner an array of services - well administered and implemented - will be available for PLWHA in the city of Pune.

Have I said too much?

2006-04-18T03:59:00.000-07:00

SCOTTISH DAY

On the 31 March a Scottish day was held at Tadiwala Road. It was a day designed to give a little insight into the traditions, pride and fun that engulfs the great country of Scotland.

The day included many different events but one of the big events was the Caily. Some of the most popular of the Scottish Country Dances were demonstrated to the awe struck children. This included a fantastic demonstration of “The Dashing White Sergeant” at the very start of the day. The children even gave their own attempts at some of the dances. “Strip The Willow” was taught with limited success and a lot of laughs, while “The Gay Gordons” was quickly abandoned and instead people just kept spinning round in circles to the catchy music that filled the air with a buzz of excitement.

Now Scotland holds a friendly monster called “Nessie, The Loch Ness Monster”. ‘Nessie in a Nutshell’ gave the dramatic history of the great beast from her encounter with missionaries and monks right down to modern day hunts for Nessie. Then the children followed their new found knowledge up with a game called “Pin The Tail On The Nessie”. A beautifully painted poster of Scotland’s long, green resident with its tail missing had been carefully made the previous day. The children were then given the tail, blindfolded, spun around 5 times, and then tried to attach the tail to Nessie. It was harder than it sounds and her tail ended up all over the place. Despite the dizziness and level of difficulty, the children lined up to try and give Nessie her tail back.

Nicola Yule demonstrated “The Highland Fling” to us with impressive results. As the rest of us hummed the tune (as we were unable to get it on CD) and the children clapped their hands, she bravely danced a solo of the dance to the cheering crowd. It was an impressive dance done expertly and was a joy to watch.

Then it was time for food. The previous day the kitchen had been invaded by volunteers and there were chocolate goodies to be had. First up there were chocolate crispies with Mars Bars in them. They were good! Then chocolate truffles, which went down a real treat with everyone. There was nothing left except the washing up at the end of the day. The fudge that had also been made for the day refused to set, even though it was left in the fridge overnight. It didn’t set for days afterwards ether!

Last thing on the list was a singing of “Flower Of Scotland”, Scotland’s National Anthem. It was played on the chanter and the first verse was sung to the children. The words themselves probably weren’t understood but we felt it important that they heard some of the great Anthem.

The day was finished off with some group photos of volunteers and children together with Nessie smiling from a poster in the background.

The events were repeated, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, and both went well. Lunch was a more Scottish type meal than Indian, though rice was still there there were vegetables through it although there were no chapattis or dale in sight.

In conclusion Scottish Day went well. Flags, posters and tartan hats were floating about and everyone had a great time. Most of the staff at Deep Griha put their heads round the door to have a look at what was going on and have a little dance themselves. The day was a fantastic success! Such a success in fact that we decided to do it again, and 2 more Scottish days are happening, one at Ramtekadi and the other at Epiphany school. Should be good.

Well done to everyone who helped to make Tadiwala Road’s Scottish Day the brilliant event that it was. It really couldn’t have happened without you.

David Lyon

Pre-Hobby Week

2006-04-18T03:35:00.000-07:00

For the past 2 days I have been sitting staring at a computer trying to find things to do with the kids for hobby week. I've searched through art and craft pages, party games and songs pages. So far, to be honest, I haven't come up with much - what do you do with 100+ kids with ages ranging from 6 - 14?? Things that seem really good and fun at first become the worst idea ever overnight or things that are great for the younger kids will bore the older ones to tears but what is good for the older kids is much too difficult for the younger ones. Does that even make sense?? I've thought of doing some drama or songs or games with them but there are so many children...not to worry though...I'm sure between the 6 volunteers we'll be able to think up something, if nothing else it will be interesting to see how it all works out.

I'm now sitting staring at the computer trying to think of what else to put on here...my concentration levels seem to have hit the floor in the heat of the day and just think, its getting hotter - my brain is going to frazzle away to nothing I think.

Anyway, getting back on track...

The next few days should be a learning curve - I've no doubt at some point we'll have to do a little improv. We're taking the hobby class from 10-1 from tomorrow all through next week - the idea of having a mini scottish day is sounding quite appealing - teach them some scottish dancing which will no doubt just turn into a lot of twirling and jumping round in circles. Undoubtedly it'll all be good fun, not too chaotic with just a hint of madness...

Esther

The Chaos Within - Big Bang or Adam & Eve

2006-04-13T01:44:00.000-07:00

Where did HIV come from?

Last week was DISHA's training week.

The question of HIV's origin had never really occurred to the team, until Pramila, my Nutrition Supervisor, asked me if its true that HIV was an infection that came to us from a Chimpanzee.

Before I begin, I would like to direct readers of this blog to http://www.avert.org/origins.htm to read about the origins of HIV/AIDS… and although I have written about some of this stuff before, what follows are some thoughts about theories (hard cold facts) that seem to surface again and again in our work.

At the Limuru Conference in January, Rev. Dr. P Mohan Larbeer from the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, Madurai presented a paper that included the hypotheses that 1) the HIV virus was created by the CIA - a sort of biological weapon- that primarily targeted people of African origin, or 'black' people, and of course, homosexuals; and 2) That Western Scientists working for Pharmaceutical companies not only created the virus, but also have the answer... it wasn't very clear whether that answer was a cure, or a vaccination, but they are sitting on it, because there is Zillions to be made through the manufacturing of ART/ARVs!

Being a brat in the HIV/AIDS field, this was the first time I had heard these theories, and I was aghast! My first reaction was that it was bullshit! I stood up and thanked Mohan for his 'provocative' presentation and commented that if what he was saying even had a semblance of truth, then all that we at the grassroots do to fight HIV/AIDS is futile... the conspiracy or onspiracies will never be overcome!

Mohan's presentation - there are books on these theories, and they not written by your average conspiracy theorists that believe Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones went undercover with the real MIB as part of 'the method' - may be conjecture at best, but it did make us think about the industry that is HIV/AIDS.

But, if HIV was created by white Western scientists in a great underground labyrinth of laboratories in some obscure little town in middle America, like Nashville Illinois, where the American Government has teams of scientists working on devious-anyone-who-is-not-white-and-Christian-and-straight-and-married-decimating-weapons of mass destruction, then they fucked up. Because as we say on the DISHA project HIV/AIDS does not discriminate... white, black, yellow, green, red, it does not care what colour you are! Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jedi, it cares not about your creed. Gay, Straight, Transgender... It will infect you if it can... if you allow it to.

Another theory I heard quite recently was that homosexuals created it. Repeated anal sex somehow gave birth to the virus.

This appears to be a popular hyopothesis in Pune.

Added onto this is that HIV is God's post-modern curse on all those homosexuals and the promiscuous, regardless of sexual preference. In the beginning, well, circa 4000 BC, he dealt with them by raining down sulphur; on Sodom and Gomorrah for instance (heavy rains for 40 days and 40 nights, and waiting for the sewers to back up - according to Bill Cosby - hadn't really worked back in Noah’s day), and in the 70's (first case of HIV was probably in 1959) he decided HIV was the way to go. Why the 70's? Flower power and free sex was at its zenith. Dates help corroborate the facts! If the faithful, like Pastor Patricia Sawo contracted it, then that's just part of the collateral damage that this transcendent all powerful being is so accepting of.

The scientists - those who apparently do not work for the American Government’s WMD programme - search for an answer, and they should. Understanding HIV’s origin will help us fight it. And the AVERT site sheds light on how far they have got.

But for me, at the grassroots, the frontlines of the battle, debating about the origin of HIV/AIDS with those who do not want to think past ‘where did it come from?’ is much like debating the origin of humanity, the world and the universe, as we know it.

Did God conjure up the universe, and choose the ‘third rock from the sun’ to create a species in his own image, and endow man with free will, and give him dominion over (some read ‘responsibility for’) all creation, or was there a unimaginatively named ‘Big Bang’ that determined our beginning?

I really don’t care… even as a Christian I didn’t. Be it that Adam came from clay, and Eve from one of his stolen ribs, or be it that humanity began its journey as an amoeba, we are here now, and we have to live! Life is a gift. Be it from God, be it from my mum and dad. Also, all this horror of existence vs. the horror of non-being means little to me. We do exist. We just have to make sure we live.

HIV is here. It may have been through zoonosis, and if it was, I do hope they find a way to beat it… but concerns with HIV’s origin must in no way take away from the battle ahead of us; the people who are HIV+ , their families, all of whom need our support and love; the STIGMA that is so insidious and preys upon so many of us.

The blame game, the pointing of accusing fingers, the looks of disgust – all these often take precedence over actually preventing the spread of infection, and caring for those who are HIV+. I have sat with seemingly intelligent and compassionate people who are so caught up with the origin, or how someone contracted it, that they are ironically less concerned with the continuous rate of infection and the person who is HIV+.

We have also been told, more than once, the last time was yesterday, that we're merely prolonging life, and increasing the chances of infection, i.e., an HIV+ person is necessarily an agent of infection. Just let them die.

Again, on the project we drive home that HIV is not end to life. HIV+ people do not have to merely suffer the rest of their existence. They can live!

... ...

So, go, read about the possible origins of HIV/AIDS, satisfy your curiosity, and then come help us fight this battle. We cannot do it alone. We need you to be HIV Positive.

A walk down Tadiwala Road

2006-04-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

I originally posted the following blog elsewhere... Hans has requested that I put it up on this site too, since it's about the community where Deep Griha Society operates.

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It's a sunny late February morning, around 9.30am. Although summer doesn't begin officially until March, winter is definitely over and it's going to be a hot day. I leave my first-floor flat, and take the stairs down. The panoramic views from the roof eight storeys up are stunning, especially at night.

I take a left out of the front gates, giving a brief nod to the uniformed security guard. There's a team of seven, and the gate is manned 24 hours a day. Sometimes I get back late at night and tiptoe past the slumbering watchman as he lies by a small fire, trying to keep warm.

Immediately outside I encounter two small girls balancing heavy water jars on their heads. Dressed in rags but sporting beautiful smiles, they've just fetched water from the public tap down the road, and are returning to their homes on an otherwise barren patch of land adjoining the small car park.

The children of construction workers - the women work as well as the men - hired to build the apartment blocks, they live onsite in temporary hutments fashioned from corrugated iron sheets and tarpaulin. My building was finished a couple of years back, and the next block is almost complete. Perhaps soon they'll start on the final building. After the work is finished, say in a year or two, the land they currently occupy will probably be turned into a couple of parking spaces and they'll have to move on. Yet they're the lucky ones. A few years of steady employment and a place to stay - although it's squalid, it's better than the street.

As it happens, their hutments are on the other side of a wall surrounding the residents' swimming pool and clubhouse. I wonder what they make of it all. We don't share much in common, although as a mere tenant I don't get to use these facilities either. It's best not to consider that my monthly rent alone is probably equivalent to half-a-year's salary for one of the male labourers. The women usually get paid even less.
A little to the right outside the gates sits a large skip, piled high with rubbish. In the mornings, there'll usually a rag picker atop this pile, searching for some small treasure - a plastic bottle, some newspapers, old clothes perhaps - that they can sell on for a couple of rupees.

As I walk down the lane that leads to Tadiwala Road proper, I overtake two teenage boys, strutting in the fashion of teenagers the world over, and dressed in the typical fashion of urban Indian lads: tight jeans, mildly flared and a little high-waisted; slim-fit wide-lapelled shirts; oiled hair. Just here there's an autorickshaw rank - very handy - and on my left I pass a tiny one-room tailor shop. On my right there a couple of general stores, where you stand outside and ask the shopkeeper for whatever supplies you're after. All the goods are arranged on shelves or hung from hooks - an assistant will clamber up a ladder or hop on a chair to fetch down your order. A few more small shops along this lane include a doctor's surgery, a pharmacist and a laundry. Drop your clothes off here and a couple of days later they'll be returned as good as new.

Turning on to Tadiwala Road, things are lively. It's not a wide road at this point - you won't see many cars - but there's always the odd rickshaw and no shortage of bicycles, motorbikes and scooters. There's a vibrant, colourful mix of pedestrians, stalls and roadside hawkers. Fancy a tattoo? A bootleg Bollywood VCD? A poster of Shah Rukh Khan? No problem.

If I turned left, I'd be walking towards the centre of the slum. Tadiwala Road is little more than a kilometre in length, yet more than 30,000 people live in the slum area. When you see the cramped, narrow lanes and packed-together shanty housing you can see just how this is possible. The road here, petering out into a rough lane, terminates up by the river. When the river burst its banks last July due to the excessive monsoon rains, many families were displaced and a number of hutments were destroyed or washed away. For several days, everyone here was knee-deep in filthy water.

Today, as on most days, I'll take a right turn instead. On the corner there's a small tapri stall selling tea, samosas, wada pav and onion bhajis. Tasty if not necessarily healthy, there's usually something frying away in a deep dish of oil. Next door there's a watch stall; opposite, another grocery shop. A couple of guys have parked up their handcarts and are selling fresh fruit and vegetables. Some women, sitting on the ground, are selling today's newspapers. I get my copy of the Indian Express home delivered, so I walk on.

After just another twenty seconds or so, dodging scooters, running children and some mangy-looking dogs, I come up to Deep Griha Society's Family Welfare Centre, facing a small flour mill operation, where the sound (or silence) of the threshing machine gives a useful indication of whether the electricity supply is functioning or not.

Past the FWC, there are a couple more snack stalls and a barbershop. Opposite is a 'lottery centre' for those who like to gamble. Conveniently for those concerned, there's a dingy looking place next door where some of the local men - and it is only men - like to enjoy some illicit liquor. Today there's a man slumped outside. His trousers are open, his shirt is riding up and he's passed out by the none-too-clean gutter.

I continue over the junction with Dhole Patil Road. From here, Tadiwala Road is a little wider - suitable for cars - and is surfaced with tarmac. On the right hand side are a several residential buildings that provide housing for the families of Indian Railways employees. Squat blocks of three storeys, they remind me a little of the ex-council flat I used to share in Balham. They are not luxurious. The buildings are arranged around an open space usually occupied with children playing street cricket.

Passing by a few months ago, I saw a crowd gathered outside, watching the demolition of a couple of unauthorised constructions that had utilised the exterior wall of one of the railway buildings as a convenient starting point. Within minutes, a JCB had pulled down the flimsy structures and loaded the rubble into a waiting dustcart. DGS lost a one-room Balwadi (pre-school) during this operation. The area is now walled off - I don't know what happened to the previous occupants. Slum dwellers are always wary about the threat of demolitions; when politicians promise a crackdown on illegal constructions, slums are always first in the firing line. Yet the wealthy homeowners and businessmen who have added illegal extra floors and balconies to their buildings usually sleep soundly - they'll probably be allowed to 'regularise' for a small fee.

Continuing down the road, things start to move upmarket. Mixed in with the cheap-and-cheerful restaurants along here, there's a fancy-looking business hotel, a British Airways office and a Chevrolet dealership. Just past the railway housing, Tata Consultancy Services has a shiny new building. Next is the National Institute of Naturopathy, which offers a variety of ayurvedic treatments along with beginner, intermediate and advanced yoga classes. I lasted about a week.

Now I'm almost at the bottom of Tadiwala Road. On the right hand side there's a modern church building - Our Lady of Perpetual Help. On the left, there's Sohrab Hall, a kind of office block-cum-shopping centre that houses several boutiques, travel agents and life insurers, a Pizza Express restaurant, a high-end gym, and a US visa centre. Thirty or forty homeless people live on the pavement just opposite. At the traffic lights, children beg at the lights. Women holding newborn babies breathe in horrendous pollution all day as they weave in and out of traffic asking for a few rupees.

So there you have it - a microcosm of urban India itself. The rich living side by side with the poor. Opulence and luxury contrasted to abject poverty. Be it the homeless people by Sohrab Hall, or the labourers in hutments next to the Kumar Pinnacle swimming pool, this is India.

A few years ago, someone coined the term 'India Shining' to describe India's promised economic miracle. President Bush has just been in New Delhi to discuss free trade so that India's burgeoning middle-class - estimated at 300 million people - can spend their disposable income on American goods and services.
But the fruits of the growing economy are not available to all. Is India really shining for the slum residents of Pune? Are the ever-expanding slums in Mumbai and Delhi a healthy sign of increasing urban employment or a stark reflection of life in rural areas? Are farmer suicides, gender-based selective abortions, communal riots and large-scale political corruption all healthy indicators of the state of the nation?

In India, 45 per cent of all children aged under five are malnourished. But in the cities at least, you can always go for a pizza.

Back at DeepGriha

2006-04-03T02:06:00.000-07:00

After spending almost 6 weeks in Bidar, it was a welcome change to come back to Deep Griha. There wasn't much for me to do in Bidar so when the DISHA group came and I spent some time with them and they laughed all the time. Hopefully I'll get to spend some more time with them now I'm at Deep Griha again - learn more about the work that they do.

Although I've said it's a welcome change to be back here it's a big change. The children here are so full of life whereas is Bidar I have been used to quieter children. The kids here laugh so much and are always getting up to something - one thing's for sure - i'll never be bored for too long.

Esther Kerr

Scotland Day

2006-04-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

As a leaving present for our two English volunteers Chloe and Faz we decided to organise a Scotland Day to teach them some Ceilidh dancing. Once the light finally came on we managed to get all the children up and dancing to our Scottish music. Not quite the proper dancing but lots of twirling with tons of energy. After a game of pin the tail on Nessie we handed out truffles and crispy cakes (the tablet we had planned hadn't set)which went down a storm.
The story of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster was recreated by David, and although the kids mabye didn't understand every word the sound effects were very popular.

Nicola performed some highland dancing for us while we all dummed along to Scotland the brave. We finished the morning by singing flower of Scotland and handing out paper thistles which we the Disha clients had made. After a Scottish lunch of Rice with veg and dahl throught it rather than beside, we ran the whole thing again in the afternoon.

The Chaos Within - Being an HIV Positive Community...

2006-03-31T03:55:00.000-08:00

We had a meeting with the community leaders of Tadiwala Road on the 26th of March.

Sunday. It was potentially our most challenging event yet, not withstanding the pseudo-conservative and God's-hour-is-Sunday-morning-at-8am churches we've been to... the best church experience we had thus far was at Pastor Dominic's church at the YMCA, they were evangelical and charismatic, but there was no pseudo-conservatism there. Just a sense of mission to reach out to those who need it.

On the 26th, we had over 40 leaders there, young and old, from Tadiwala Road listening to how their community is on the frontlines of the battle against HIV/AIDS. The response was overwhelming, 99% - if you want to put a number to it - signed up to the vision 'To make Tadiwala Road a Model Community in the Battle against HIV/AIDS' and pledged over 12o of their personnel for training in awareness programmes and fighting stigma. These training programmes begin in May, and will include participants from our 'Be HIV Positive' programmes in University Depts., Colleges and Churches.

On the 'Be HIV Positive' front, some individuals on my team have got a little nervous about me going around talking about being HIV Positive and indicating that my team is HIV Positive too... they feel uncomfortable. Marriage proposals may dry up, for example, if they are suspected to be HIV+. I sometimes wonder if I unconsciously ignore the sensitivities of those on my team that aren't HIV+ because I am so concerned about those who are... but... being HIV Positive is what we have to be. We can qualify it, anyway we like if we feel the need to, but after a meeting with Zinabu and some other students from the School of Health Sciences last week, they are still going on about how they are HIV Positive! Which is fantastic... and if they can... then my team, those who are concerned, will learn to do this one day too. Soon, I hope.

If I stand up at a 'Be HIV Positive' programme we are conducting and talk about me being HIV Positive, and talk about what it means, for example, 'being positive about educating yourself and others on HIV/AIDS and related issues', I am not out to create a doubt in anyone's mind about me being HIV+, but if they do think so... its a bonus, because they'll realise that someone who is HIV+ looks like anybody else, and that is what we strive to inculcate.

More significantly, my HIV+ team members have shared with me how supported they feel by the fact that I call the team HIV Positive, which includes HIV+ people.

Confusion? No, solidarity.

People have requested to say ‘positive about HIV/AIDS,’ rather than HIV Positive... they say that India is not ready, there is too much ignorance etc etc etc.

I don't know... if the School of Health Sciences and Pastor Dominic's Evangelical church is anything to go by, not to mention the community leaders who stood up and called themselves HIV Positive on Sunday last... then maybe India is ready.

But are you ready to be HIV Positive?