When I was in high school, I read a National Geographic article about HIV/AIDS in India. The article focused primarily on the sex industry, and I was horrified at the lack of education among the population, as well as the poverty and refusal for government intervention that forced people into such dangerous circumstances. Today, there are over 3 million people in India with HIV, but still the secrecy and denial about the disease plagues the nation. This anthology contains 16 essays by some of India's most prominent writers (including Vikram Seth, Kiran Desai, and Salman Rushdie). Each of the essays looks at a different segment of India's population affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic - expectedly, the focus is on various aspects of the sex industry. One of the most powerful essays, I thought, was Rushdie's exploration of Mumbai's transgendered population. The cultural taboos surrounding homosexual relationships, and the effect on these individuals, was heartbreaking. The spread of HIV within the sex industry is clearly a socio-economic problem, and a result of attitudes toward gender and sex. But, so much of this book was also about love and the need for acceptance. This book was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - and I would have liked to see a more lengthy foreword/afterword about the conrete work the foundation is doing to enhance healthcare and education, as well as to reduce poverty in India. In the past decade, I feel the spectre of HIV/AIDS has dimished in the United States because of a better understanding of how the disease is transmitted, and advances in medicine allowing those with HIV to live longer healthier lives. Yet, these acknowledgements of the need for public health education, access to medicine, and a fundamental acceptance of people for who they are - are clearly missing in so many cultures (and still in the US), and I hope that the need for continued dialogue about HIV/AIDS will not be forgotten, simply because better drugs have been created. This is a depressing collection of essays, but one that is a good reminder that these problems have not gone away, and that we need to work together globally to overcome the devastation they have caused.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
AIDS Sutra - Amartya Sen (ed.)
When I was in high school, I read a National Geographic article about HIV/AIDS in India. The article focused primarily on the sex industry, and I was horrified at the lack of education among the population, as well as the poverty and refusal for government intervention that forced people into such dangerous circumstances. Today, there are over 3 million people in India with HIV, but still the secrecy and denial about the disease plagues the nation. This anthology contains 16 essays by some of India's most prominent writers (including Vikram Seth, Kiran Desai, and Salman Rushdie). Each of the essays looks at a different segment of India's population affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic - expectedly, the focus is on various aspects of the sex industry. One of the most powerful essays, I thought, was Rushdie's exploration of Mumbai's transgendered population. The cultural taboos surrounding homosexual relationships, and the effect on these individuals, was heartbreaking. The spread of HIV within the sex industry is clearly a socio-economic problem, and a result of attitudes toward gender and sex. But, so much of this book was also about love and the need for acceptance. This book was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - and I would have liked to see a more lengthy foreword/afterword about the conrete work the foundation is doing to enhance healthcare and education, as well as to reduce poverty in India. In the past decade, I feel the spectre of HIV/AIDS has dimished in the United States because of a better understanding of how the disease is transmitted, and advances in medicine allowing those with HIV to live longer healthier lives. Yet, these acknowledgements of the need for public health education, access to medicine, and a fundamental acceptance of people for who they are - are clearly missing in so many cultures (and still in the US), and I hope that the need for continued dialogue about HIV/AIDS will not be forgotten, simply because better drugs have been created. This is a depressing collection of essays, but one that is a good reminder that these problems have not gone away, and that we need to work together globally to overcome the devastation they have caused.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment