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On Wed, 1 Dec 2004, Bosco D'Mello wrote:
RESPONSE: No-no-no.....these would not be out of place until they were beaten into bits over and over again....BTW, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy......and World AIDS Day passed away quietly on Goanet today.
Just to avoid a complete miss...
A little under 20 years ago, I interviewed a Goan lady from Bhopal who lived a short distance away (forget exactly how much) from the Union Carbide plant, and who was expecting at that time. Fortunately, she returned to Goa and delivered a healthy baby at Dr Sidney Pinto do Rosario's hospital in Porvorim.
Last week, I visited Baina and met up with some of the families struck by AIDS. An 18-year-old mum whose mother was dying of AIDS and whose sister had already died of the disease, a lady in her 'thirties (who looked seventy) and was HIV+, a sex-worker whose friends had died of it.
[Unfortunately I cannot share this work with you; one was written in days before the PC came to Goa and is not archived on any hard-disk. The other was done in audio format, not text.]
This is not meant to insinuate that HIV/AIDS is/was a problem related to Baina and the poor who sold their bodies for twice the price of the cheapest rice-plate meal. It may be less visible in other parts of Goa, but it's there all the same.
Incidentally, while Melinda enjoyed her concert (and that is fully
understandable, this comment is *not* targeted at her) one was apalled by the manner in which the State is using middle-class opinion and interests to edge out the "undesirable poor" by getting sanction for its June 14 inhuman demolitions through a well-organised if controversial music show. Earlier, Action Aid was sought to be roped in to organising a similar show at Baina, till the 'politics of music' became clear to it, and the organisation realised it would be a travesty of its mission to help the weak, and backed out!
FN
