World AIDS Day

Elaan, in partership with SAATHII mehendi-tattooed and quized it's way through WAD 2007 at Star Theatre this evening.

Participating NGO's - SAATHII (they conceptualized the event and laid the foundation with Priya Entertainment), Elaan ( with CSA at the forefront of all activities ), Diksha (an organization that works with the children of sex workers) and SPARSH, an organization which works with positive patients (apologies if i am mistaken)

Venue - Star Theatre rooftop amidst visitors and a foodpark

Duration - 6:30 to 8:15pm

Elaan's participation included - Overall documentation, The 20 question AIDS quiz with assistance from SPARSH and Mehendi tattoos for everyone ( keeps the AIDS ribbon on for longer).

Participants from Elaan : Pranaadhika, Mirna, Vijay, Madhurima, Mansi, Debolina, Abhinandan, Shreya, Bidisha and Chhandak ( who isn't officially a part of Elaan yet but will be).

Invisible participation from photographer and uncle Vivek Devburman who wasn't able to attend owing to an injury, but his camera made it. :-)

Highlights : Souvik as Lola (a much "slimmer,sexier,cuter, more romantic" Bula di) and his assistant in his many avatars / Mirna's beautiful "my brother nikhil" medley" and the sporting people who allowed us to (mehendi) tattoo them with AIDS awareness messages and their own NGO names. I have reason to believe that the latter option was rather popular !

Lowlights : The audience wasn't particularly delighted at the concept, despite our best efforts. However, not to be dampened, the participants themselves went out of their way to involve the handful that were interested during the quiz and Souvik/Lola had everyone in splits with their one-liners. The lighting could have been better as it was an evening event. Kolkata shone and Kolkata froze us out.

The important thing is, we did not back down from our individual messages. Homosexuality, Child Sexual Abuse, "jonno" (the bangla word for sex) were all mentioned as part of the programme and that gave us all a lot of satisfaction.

CSR or not, my good sirs, you may NOT stifle our Constitutional right to free speech.

Special mention : The kids representing Diksha were Stupendous. Mindblowing.

Photographs are huge (file size), will upload later. More discussion/feedback on the orkut community.