Before reading any further.. try to be honest
(at least this one time.. be your own judge):-W
How many of us (including you and me) are willing to go for an HIV-Test without somebody telling us to do so?.. Do we have to guts to drop Whatever we are doing ( yes.. reading this blog post too) , shut down the system and pay a visit to our nearest Blood-Test center for an HIV- test on ourselves.. “NOW… nah..but i promise i will later”.. yes.. i also thought the same ..Well… I am not blaming you for thinking like that.. because we carry with us “The – burglar – will – come – only – to – our – neighbor’s – house” kind of attitude … And, we proudly call ourselves as Educated – Intellectual – and Civilized #-O
Lets go a step further and ask ourselves.. when we cant command ourselves to this NOW.., do we have the guts to ask for a pre-marital HIV certificate when we plan to marry or when one of our kin , friend(s) are getting married.. I can hear you say…what if they say “Its none of your business” ..
Even though the above mentioned scenario is true in many cases , we can’t ignore how the AIDS-Demon has spread is tentacles in our society ..We see huge hoardings for AIDS helplines and the importance of Safe-sex and Single partner.. All of us respect the effort taken by the various communities and organizations that are doing their bits to curb this demon.
The Karnataka (India) Govt is trying hard to make the Pre – Marital – HIV – test mandatory so that any couple entering into a wedlock has to produce a HIV-Test certificate….This will infact save the embarrassment for both the bride’s and groom’s side :-S .With so much happening in the cities.. with AIDS Awareness programme and the Red-Ribbon helpline , the revolution had already begun in a place where the nearest public health center is about 80km away…
In Karnataka.. at about 80kms away from the village of Bagalkot is a smaller village with about 600-800 families. Here the villagers have made it mandatory for any bride / groom willing to marry the boy/girl from their village to produce the HIV test certificate ^:)^ . Its has been understood that they used to give their girls in marriage to grooms from Mumbai- Goa -etc.. and after few months/years these girls would come back to their home-town as widows after loosing their husband to AIDS.
It was also seen that the children of these girls were also infected with the HIV virus. Thats the reason the villagers gave to the Times of India (31-Jan-07) on why they have made the test mandatory.
They also credited the local Devadasis in the village who brought about this change in the village..This small step taken by the remote village is indeed a gaint leap for all of us..
We, Urbanites are forced to eat a humble pie..We are always “planning” :-@ to do something.. while the so called illiterate – uneducated – rural lot has already put things in action …Shame on us :-< .. NOW is the time to act
Deepa:
As per our government conditions, when we go for yearly physical checkup and when you apply for life insurance, they do these test with a blood sample.
Yes, I agree wiht that Priya.. but then.. htas only “when we choose to go for a checkup”.. the general public is not under any kind of obligation or law to get the yearly check up done.. moreover.. I have seen blood reports of eople who have never been to the lab ..in the currupted system.. it sonly easy to apply to an insurance company using fake documents..
This is infact a very good step. Most of the villagers are far more conscious about their community than tha urbanites, because they see the village as a family. In the cities, we wouldn’t even know the next door neighbour.
Glad that I have taken it. Never thought it was such a bold step:)
Shiva .. Congrats & hats offf on your decision
truly said.. in villages.. everyone knows wahts happeing to everyone else.. so there is networking and information-sharing
what are we doing… network enggineering 😕