And of course the venues for the rounds are all the HIV Positive establishments in the city. HIV positive establishments are the half a dozen or so restaurants that have been given an HIV Positive certification-a paper many even display on their walls. “This means that they are Positive about education, awareness and support for HIV,” says Hans Billimoria, activist and an important member of Wake Up Pune Campaign launched by a coalition of NGOs in 2006 and which has been responsible in the first place for bringing most of these youngsters together. With an explicit aim of launching an innovative war against AIDS, the campaign has employed means like boot camps, disruptive theatre (as in the loud conversation on AIDS as mentioned earlier at multiplex), cinema slides, information kiosks at multiplexes, distribution of CDs with songs based on HIV—and of course reaching out to the crowds through their ‘HIV partner restaurants.’

“There were concerns initially, but eventually clients also realise that you are doing a good thing,” says Jitesh Ved, owner of 69, not too worried about having one more controversial aspect to the already suggestively named eatery. Others places include popular youngster hangouts like Soul, Apache, Gaia, Post-91 and Not Just Jazz By the Way who also spread out black and red coasters with HIV messages and have help line numbers on their menu cards. “People are really chilled out. In fact my waiters even serve wearing the HIV Positive T-shirts very often. In the beginning people asked what it was all about and we explained but now they are used to it since we’ve been doing this for a year,” adds Khodu Irani, the 27-year-old owner of High Spirits.

... contd.