Lifting the Covers
Neelu, 26, is an example of a culture many Indians would prefer to forget. He is a eunuch, or hijra. Like witches in medieval Europe, hijras make money blessing clients and cursing their enemies. But they are also the dirty little secret of some rail commuters. Neelu speaks of servicing 20 men a day for as little as 50¢ each while wandering the platforms of Madras' rail stations. On the lowest rung of India's social order, hijras have existed almost entirely outside mainstream society. "No ration cards, no identity cards, no vote," says Neelu. "Not even clients talked to us." Now, paradoxically, "AIDS has given us respect and recognition. Health workers and government people come to us, accept us, treat us as human beings."

Across town, the Gates Foundation is funding Dr. R. Lakshmibai of the Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative to take the first comprehensive head count of male sex workers in India. While the hijras were impossible to miss, she says she was shocked at the far larger number of conventionally dressed gay prostitutes; by her estimate, there may be thousands of them in Madras alone. "I thought it would be a minority thing," she says. "I could hardly even conceive of a male sex worker." Partly that's because in India, "even homosexuals don't accept homosexuals," adds Lakshmibai. "[Male] clients who pay for sex with a man don't consider it sex at all." As a result, many homosexuals would not even recognize their own relevance in condom or AIDS campaigns; and Lakshmibai says a persistent Indian myth is that AIDS is a "straight plague."

Delusion is hardly limited to the gay world. In India's business capital, Bombay, a surging economy has produced millions of young men with money to burn and an industry of 80,000 women in thousands of "dancing bars" keen to take it. Some clubs are simply brothels with a bar. But in high-end establishments, patrons and managers join in an elaborate pretense to mask the sex on sale. A typical bar will feature 30 or so girls in saris dancing coquettishly to Bollywood numbers as customers look on from sofas like modern Mughal Emperors. There is no touching or nudity, and devoted customers shower their favorite dancers with hundreds of dollars in small notes. After hours, it's a different story. "Definitely, some girls have sex with customers," says Manjit Singh, owner of the Karisma, a dance bar in downtown Bombay, and head of the city's dance-bar association. "We keep it decent in here, but how can we control that?" DKT India general manager Char says even the women buy into the illusion. "Many of these girls are married," she says, "but they haven't told their husbands, their friends or their neighbors. And they'd certainly never use a term like 'sex worker.'" Char considers the dance bars an improvement in Bombay's red-light areas. There is less sexual slavery, and bar owners like Singh who preach safe sex have helped keep HIV prevalence relatively low at 10%, according to surveys by various NGOs, compared with 50% in the city's brothels. But she warns that Singh is an exception and his competitors' pretense that they are not in the sex industry means "this is an epidemic in waiting." On April 12, R.R. Patil, Deputy Chief Minister of the state of Maharashtra, which includes Bombay, announced his intention to shut all 1,300 of the city's dance bars, saying: "These bars are corrupting the moral fiber of our youth and culture." There was no announcement, however, about the less visible, more infected red-light ghettos, where thousands of former dance-bar girls may end up if Patil goes ahead with his plan.

A day's drive south of Bombay, in the district of Koppal amid the rocky barrens of the northern Karnataka state, there's no pretending anymore. Brought in by truckers and migrant workers returning from the cities, AIDS is referred to in Karnataka as "Bombay Disease." HIV was first detected in the district 12 years ago, and health surveys show the prevalence of AIDS in Koppal's million-plus population may already have reached 5-8%. Dr. Satish Bhuthaieh of Samuha Samraksha holds a weekly clinic in the village of Kustigi in a shack with two attached dormitories—one for women, one for men—that are reserved for the dying. That the disease has long crossed over into the general population is apparent from the 300 people—truckers, migrants, prostitutes, grandmothers, child brides and toddlers—outside his door. Samuha director Iyengar says HIV was spread by more than the mere mobility of truckers and migrants. "Most married men have multiple partners," she says. "And women quite often have a steady stand-in partner, or more than one, for when their husband goes away." Koppal is a testament to the dangers of denial. "When the first cases started appearing, the government said: 'AIDS is not an issue in India. This is a foreign thing. Condoms only promote promiscuity.' Today, every single village in Koppal knows it's an issue. There's not one untouched by HIV. And that's because none of those cherished ideas about sex and fidelity apply." Asked how far ahead Koppal is of the rest of India, Iyengar replies: "Five years."

1 | 2 | 3 | Next

	Don't Forget India's Poor [Dec. 10, 2004] Economic reforms have left them behind, but there's no shortage of policies that could help Sex, AIDS and Thailand [Jul. 12, 2004] The country dodged the HIV bullet in the 1990s. But it dropped its guard, and now it's at risk again China's Secret Plague [Dec. 11, 2003] How one U.S. scientist is struggling to help the government face up to an exploding AIDS crisis Stalking a Killer [Sep. 25, 2002] In the time it takes the average person to read this story, 40 Asians will die of AIDS. TIME traces its murderous path AIDS in Africa: Death Stalks a Continent [Feb. 19, 2001] In the dry timber of African societies, AIDS was a spark. The conflagration it set off continues to kill millions. Here's why More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine