Mansi

There's something amiss with the scale of the buildings at the Mayfair lagoon, Bhubaneshwar. Like with the people at the restaurant and around, who all seem to be living a larger life. I feel like I'm caught unaware in the middle of a play, and every now & then I feel the need to touch something.
Bhubaneshwar, the little of what I've seen, is a town coming together in a rather large, yet wild and unpredictable way. The humid head doesn't help me register vistas clearly, despite my shades and cap.
I did get to see a temple, the kind who's receding top halp resembles the tresses of a dark, wholesome woman.
Bhubaneshwar with Cuttack are twin cities. The vegetation is akin to coastal, hot and humid climates. The advertisements are like most small towns, painted on walls like official stamps.
There is construction abound, in odd places. I also learnt on the flight over that Bhubaneshwar was planned by none other than Corbusier himself. I have not seen any suited examples of it though.
Coming back to the sprawling lagoon I'm at, scale issues apart, I really like the plan. Low and sprawling, with a lagoon swanked by two arms on either side. Each arm is dotted by cottages that on one side opens out to the lagoon. Walking down open corridors, more rooms open up to common spaces, a swimming pool, a pool table, all of which culminate at the Spa & Sports center (tennis, squash and billiards).
This trip is not going to be about explorign Bhubaneshwar. That will need to wait till our next trip here.

The morning after:
I wake up to Venkatesh Suprabatam. It's quarter to seven and already the sun is up and blazing. There is no wind and the lagoon for it's exoticness is not doing anything to battle the heat. Red ants are plenty here, a few of them trying to make a snack of my feet. Smaller beings always come with twice as much ambition.
I don't feel like I am in India. I don't mean that this in the 'This is too good to be India' sense. Thats for the defiant foreign bound citizens and the cocky inward bound NRIs to claim.
Since we arrived yesterday evening, I've felt removed. The vegetation, the advertisements, the traffic, the faces all look familiar. Yet I feel displaced.
There are differences here that I can't tap into. There is a certain closed off attitude of people who consider themselves the sweetest race of all. Yesterday I learnt that if you put a rasogolla in your mouth and speak Oriya, it will sound like Bengali. There is a deep rooted pride in this region, that isn't like punjabi pop. I haven't toasted the sweet part yet. There is also a place of distinguishments, as dense as the vegetation, as permeating as the heat. While I do not feel like a foreigner, I have yet to distinguish myself.
I'm now listening to 'Choli ke peeche kya hai' in a spiritual remix attributed to our many Hindu goddesses. The ability of humans to ponder and arrive at solutions is remarkable. On the highway, yesterday, I saw a sign - 1258 km Chennai. That was comforting and also helped orient me to where I am.
Art on the other hand asks all the exaggerated questions.
We do have a small temple jutting out into the center of the lagoon. The priest just did a water abhishekham. It is just too hot to be morning anymore.

A friend pointed me to this article called 'When silence kills' which is on the cover of the Time - Asia edition. It is an exclusive on AIDS in India.
Interestingly I spoke with the head of an Indian health NGO and got some very different sentiments, all of which I will share as soon as I have the time to put them all down in a post. For the time being, go ahead and read the article.

I have been interested in AIDS for a long time now. I read about it. I watch programs on it. I talk with other people about it. I have on two seperate occasions written to NAZ, volunteering my time except the emails always bounce back. There are times when it seems like a life dedicated to AIDS in India appears like my calling and that for the most part, I am not listening to it.

I created this community to then put (at the very least)words to this calling. Starting with just putting down my thoughts on the subject in addition to reporting on what I've seen/read/heard about it - All of course, with a single purpose: How can all of this information help us understand AIDS in India?

I want to try hard to stay away from 'propagating' solutions. I am more eager to look at the different approaches to AIDS prevention and cure and understand how they can apply to my country. Most of all, I want this community to churn up creative to-dos that reflect a clear and deep understanding of the many implementation roadblocks we are facing in this country.

I invite all of you who have opinions, thoughts and reporting skills to join this community and together we can build a repository of understanding around AIDS in India.

How to contribute to this community: You will need to have an account with blogspirit - the blogging service provider. (Go to www.blogspirit.com to join). Next you will need to log in, navigate to the POSTS section and click on the sub-heading - Communities. This page will allow you to search for the community you would like to subscribe to. Last, every time you post on something relevant to this community, please be sure to mark your post to the community(which will appear on your 'new post' page template if you're subscribed to the community already).

Thank you folks and happy calling!