Billions of rupees are being spent on research to develop a vaccine against AIDS, but how do you inoculate the illiterate, primitive mindset of people of the even more infectious virus of the misconceptions about this dreaded four letter word?
Its the 21st century and still no sign of coming of age. Experts are using every bit of their breath to spread awareness about AIDS, but still this unreasonable attitude refuses to leave the mind of the masses. AIDS victims are still denied compassion and support and are ostracized to extreme limits. Not even the children are spared from this wrath filled show of the non HIV ones. Otherwise five HIV affected children wouldn't have been refused admission to a primary school. They just wanted to defeat the mental part of the disease by expressing themselves academically. But alas! The axe of denial was on the prowl there too. As for the other students, they got a lesson on how to look down at their affected but full of life, would-have-been friends with disdain alongside their primers.
India has the image of being a tolerant country and see how tolerant an attitude was exemplified by the parents who protested against their admission.
A disease always has two aspects. One is the physical aspect and the other is the mental aspect. To defeat the physical aspect one first needs to win over the mental hurdle.
AIDS is one big mental game and our social circumstances are making it that much harder to win over it by repeatedly reminding us that living with AIDS is still a stigma.
Blink
13 years ago
