The small bearded man plays the drums and starts to sing in a deep voice. The melody is so catchy and the rhythm so simple that the auditors jiggle their feet and heads. Pazhania Pillai beams and begins singing a new song.

The group of young people acting with him performs a traditional dance. A short peace of theatre follows. The presentation makes the auditorium smile, although it is about a serious issue: HIV/AIDS in India. For the artist Pillai, this issue is the most important of all: "I write about things that concern the people's lives", he says.

During the last ten years, he has written more than 80 songs about HIV/AIDS. "People in India don't talk about sexuality", he explains. However, since the disease spreads more and more, it is necessary to break that taboo. In the form of traditional melodies, the people accept what Pazhania Pillai wants to tell them. Meanwhile, radio stations in the whole country play his songs.

AIDS is a serious problem in India. About 2.5 million people are infected with HIV. The HIV/AIDS problem is especially pressing in the south, above all in the state of Tamil Nadu. It's hard to say why so many people are infected just there. A possible reason is the high number of migrants in this region. Michael Hinsch of Malteser International explains: "Every year, many fishermen from Tamil Nadu move to the neighbouring state of Kerala for some weeks in order to fish there. Even more of them go to work to the big cities like Bombay or Chennai for some years."

There, the risk of getting infected with the virus by prostitutes is high. According to the United Nations (UNAIDS), most of the people in India contract the disease by unprotected heterosexual contacts. For this reason, an unusually high number of women (38%) are affected.

Like Helen Marie. When her husband died of AIDS, she did a HIV-test for her and her children. It turned out that she was HIV-positive, her sons (six, twelve and 14 years old), however, negative. When the 33-years-old woman talks about her everyday life, her eyes fill with tears: "Everybody let me down. I'm not even allowed to enter my family's house. My brothers and sisters gave me 300 rupees (about six euros) and told me not to come back home again."

Without support by the family, life in India is hard. "I worry about money all the time. No one wants to hire me as a domestic help, since the people have found out that I have the same illness as my husband." Helen Marie rents a part of her small house, but with the income, she hardly makes ends meet. And not even within her own four walls, the young woman is safe from hostilities: "The couple that lives with me says I'm not allowed to use the bathroom, because they are afraid of getting infected." Often, she feels like crying, but fights against tears: "When I cry in public, the people think that they may get infected by my tears!"

This ignorance about the ways of infection provides the basis for discrimination of HIVinfected people and their relatives. Michael Hinsch knows many examples of social isolation. "Some villagers don't shake hands with HIV-infected persons, they don't buy in their shops and forbid their children to play with the children of HIV-infected neighbours."

Many people living with HIV/AIDS also have financial hardships; they can hardly earn a living for their families, because they are too weak to work or because they can't find an employment. Often, parents even have to give their children to a children's home, because they can't afford to bring them up and to send them to schools anymore.

Another problem is the medical care. "In the case of many AIDS-patients, the disease is not diagnosed until it has broken out", Michael Hinsch says. "The patients are sent from hospital to hospital, before someone makes the right diagnosis. That way, they have to pay a lot of money. Some of them even run into debts." There are people who suspect that some of the doctors know the diagnosis, but don't administer a blood test, only in order to keep on treating the symptoms and gain as much money as possible with their patients.

Sheila is best informed about the problems of HIV-infected people. The employee of the Indian relief organisation Centre for Social Reconstruction (CSR) is HIV-positive herself. Her husband died of AIDS in 2004. Two of her four children - three and five years old - bear the virus like their mother. But the 32-years-old woman says: "At the moment, we are fine. I take antiretroviral drugs that reduce the number of viruses in the blood, and so do my children.´" She has made it her business to demonstrate to other HIV-infected persons that life is not over after the terrible diagnosis. Together with Malteser International, CSR started a project that supports AIDS victims and informs healthy people about the disease.

An important measure consists in providing a life in dignity to AIDS patients. Therefore, Sheila and her colleagues do house visits to consult the patients and inform them about their rights, e.g. about the right of free treatment with antiretroviral drugs during the first year.

They urge the hospitals to give the treatment that their patients need. Care trainings for the infected persons as well as for their relatives help the patients to keep living at home as long as possible. Another constituent of the project are the educational campaigns on the struggle against stigmatization and for the prevention of further infections. "When a large part of the population in South India knows that you can't get infected by a handshake, an important aim will be achieved", Michael Hinsch resumes.

Therefore, Malteser International and CRS organise workshops for youth groups, women's and men's associations and Christian groups. They conceive exhibitions and hire artists like Pazhania Pillai with his committed music, dance and theatre group.

Their performances proves that it's a promising concept: At the end of his programme, Pazhania Pillai is on his best. The auditors have stood up, clap and sing along with enthusiasm. And, by the way, learn the most important facts about HIV/AIDS. "With my songs, I want to make sure that the healthy people show solidarity with the infected persons", says Pillai. And if the people remember his melodies, maybe they will remember the messages, too.

KATRIN REHFUSS