Through his lens, a 23-yr-old fights a dreaded disease

About an hour long, the documentary is based on transmittable diseases like HIV/AIDS, Thalassemia and how basic medical testing before marriage is important. Kumar plays an HIV patient, and the documentary also has his mother, Bimla Rani and sisters Neerja and Poornima, and friend Aishna Jaswal in it.

Ankit Arya, a B Tech student, has co-directed the film while Sandip Dhiman and Akanksha Sharma have played the roles of social activists. Shot over a month in Chandigarh and the region, the documentary has interviews with HIV positive people, doctors, specialists, ministers, a demand for a National Condom Day on the lines of World Aids Day, need for sex education in schools, for regular blood tests, etc. "More than 34 million people live with AIDS all over the world, and there is an urgent need to stop this epidemic," says Kumar.

With Kumar at the helm of affairs, these youngsters are driven, to create awareness, to talk and reduce the stigma shrouding the disease which according to Kumar is worse than cancer. "People don't die of AIDS, they die of the stigma attached to it, the ostracisation from society, the unacceptance," says Kumar.

It was Kumar's father who told him that more than intelligence, being creative matters, and ever since Kumar was in Class V, he has been working towards educating society on issues pertinent to its existence. So it came as no surprise when he decided to shoot a film on the same, starting right from home where he gets his sister and her fiance's blood tests done before astro-kundali matching tests.

"We spend lakhs on a wedding but the couple of thousand on simple blood tests pinch us. More than matching patris, blood work and matching is essential to ensure disease free life and generation," he says. He agrees it was difficult convincing the families, but what had to be done had to be done.

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