Review of 68 Pages on Amazon

5 Star rating

HIV in India
October 14, 2008
By Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)


"68 Pages"

HIV in India

Amos Lassen

Mansi is an Indian counselor for HIV. Ethically she has to maintain confidentiality and she has to be objective when she tries to understand the problems and give advice to those that she counsels. Emotionality is not an open for her. She sees a lot of suffering and it is hard on her. Since she cannot talk about what she knows, she shares her thoughts with her diary.

Mansi's diary is the basis for this film and what she has written brings to light the stories of four men--Paayal, a sex worker, Nishit a user of intravenous drugs, Kiran, a gay men, and Umrao, a transsexual dancer. These men have been marginalized by society, stigmatized and lost within the mainstream. Through their lives we get a view of HIV positive people and their treatment by others.

India is in a state of denial and most Indians feel that to have HIV is to be cursed. Our four men tell us their stories and we feel their pain and their humiliation. They are rejected, not just by society, but by family and friends. We see that India's view of HIV is shallow but we also get a sense of hope that the stories that we see here can help to bring about a better understanding of the disease and perhaps that those with HIV may be able to achieve a dignified life. The four men come across as heroic and are indeed represent optimism and the triumph of the human spirit.

The movie is very, very touching as well as a slap to India. The film also recognizes the amount of work that HIV counselors do. "68 Pages" is painful to watch but the fact that it engenders hope makes it worthwhile.

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