I'm HIV positive, do you dare to touch me?

Also read: If Charlie Sheen were Indian...

A week ago, Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen revealed that he was HIV positive. Having watched Two and a Half Men and Anger Management for years, it was a heady mix of emotions for me: sympathy, pain, anger, regret, disappointment. Finally, there was one question that ran through my mind: why did no one stop him when he was going down this road of substance abuse and promiscuity? Would things have been different if Sheen was in India and had the benefit of a close-knit social structure the way we have here?

As I got ruminating, one thing was clear: Sheen's wayward ways would have attracted public scrutiny much earlier here, knowing that our neighbourhood aunties have a prurient fascination with other people's sex lives. Sheen's secret would have been out in no time, forcing him on a path of course-correction and rehabilitation. Now that's one thing America lacks - the neighbourhood aunties, I mean - for how else was he able to sleep with five thousand women, men and transsexuals, and nobody even batted an eyelid or intervened?

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