As things stand, we know we don’t have a cure for AIDS, all we have are retroviral drugs that can slow the spread of the disease. The UN reports that 4 million people are taking retroviral drugs every year for treatment of AIDS.  On the other hand, 2.7 million more people were infected with HIV in 2007 alone (and the UN expects 2008 to have been worse.)

So drugs are clearly never going to be enough; we would need preventive vaccines.  The bigger problem seems to be funding.  Seth Berkley mentions in this recent New York Times op-ed that in 2008, public and private funding for  AIDS vaccine research declined 10% year on year. The recent Thai vaccine research controversy certainly wouldn’t have helped funding either.

Enter Dr. Sudhir Paul, and his research.

This post came about because Sujatha wanted me to do a tag (more of a “spread-the-word” really) about Dr. Sudhir Paul and his research into developing an anti HIV vaccine.  Dr. Paul is a Professor in the University of Texas and also the husband of Ruchira Paul of Accidental Blogger fame. Not only is he trying out a low-cost and different approach to developing the vaccine against the HIV virus, he is also exploring a different funding approach.  I’ll let the tag do the talking:

Mission Anti-HIV

As Dr. Paul says in this video, the ‘abzyme’ approach to attacking the virus at the special weak point could pave the way to developing a low-cost and highly effective approach to attacking the HIV virus, and in the long run, other deadly or debilitating viruses. (More information is available at the website for the Covalent Immunology Foundation.)

Rather than just rely on funds from mega-pharmaceutical companies, the foundation is making an appeal to the general public to contribute small amounts of money, believing that the power of the numbers on the internet can help finance this research and pave the way to a lower-cost vaccine than can be generated via corporate funding alone.

The results of the Thai AIDS vaccine trials have been much trumpeted in the news media, even if it helped only 23 less people get full-blown AIDS in the experimental group with the placebo group, with a grand total of 16000 people in the trial. However, doubts are beginning to set in on whether those results might be purely statistical in nature, rather than a real breakthrough.

Dr.Paul’s approach could very well be one of the more promising current modes of attack against the HIV virus.

So, I’m tagging you, my friends in the blogosphere, if you are convinced, to please consider passing on the above information via your blog, and to tag five others in turn, so this can spread like…well, a virus.

If you’d like to donate money, I notice the Covalent Immunology Foundation has a donation page where you can donate amounts starting from $5.

But whether or not you decide to donate, I hope you can join me in spreading the word.  It doesn’t have to be a tag – it can be an email forward, a badge in your blog (if someone can create one!), a discussion among friends, or any other way you can think of.   You and I did not go on any pulpit and talk about saving the world.  But if this research succeeds, maybe we will have helped a little to do just that.

But then, Shefaly came along and (perhaps not knowing how loquacious I am) tagged me with a lovely Haiku tag.

Here are the rules of the tag :

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst movie you can think of. Bonus points if you have to show off your Google skills because you can?t remember the name of it and all you can come up with is that it features Roz Russell and Sandra Dee. Turns out it was some tripe called Rosie! Exclamation point the producers? idea, not mine.?Auntie Mame leavings.?

In seven syllables, no more, no less, describe your worst date. Bonus points if it was sordid. Subtract points if it sounds too much like an overweight fifteen year old Goth girl.?He pushed my head down. I puked.?

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst job you ever had. Extra bonus points if it consists of Grim. Taxi dancer. Miss Janey, I?m talking to you. I had a miserable spell where I sat all alone in an empty office, handing out the keys to various hell holes for rent around New Orleans. One Lady came back and complained there was no window in the kitchen, I pretended to sympathize and said something like ?Yes it would be nasty to have no light and air in there.? She replied ?No, hone, you don unnerstan. Dere?s a hole for de winna but ain?t no winna in it.? ?Slum lord in training.?

Put it all together and you have a haiku of life?s low points.

I have a strong suspicion that the Miss Janey bit is not really part of the rules.? I actually traced the tag back two rounds and it seems to start with a Miss Janey.? But it’s entertaining, so I am leaving it in anyway. All you tagees are free to delete it.

Here is my attempt at haiku:

Worst movie ever (5 syllables): Aliens ooze slime.

Worst date ever (7 syllables): His jowls sank in the soup bowl.

Worst job ever (5 syllables): I slept on Sundays.

I see I also have to write a short explanation.? Hopefully, the lines themselves give you some idea. Your imagination can fill in the blanks much better than any of my explanations. But here’s a little background :

The worst movie I’ve seen was undoubtedly Aliens, where I thought the depiction of the aliens was very disgusting and creepy. I had a hard time sitting through the movie, even with eyes shut at times.

The worst date? Well, the picture he had sent me had somehow managed to shave off some 40 lbs from his actual figure. I remember reading a description of a guy in some book that went “his jowls rested thankfully on his shoulders”.? (I think this was P.G. Wodehouse describing a motion picture magnate, but I am not sure.) In this guy’s case, while his jowls were not actually resting on his shoulders, you could see they were aiming to retire there, and soon.

The worst job – this was the time I frequently found myself waiting at the subway station well past midnight.

Now, whom to tag??? I have put in a lot of thought into this (in fact, the tagging took way more time than the haiku).?? I would love to read your haikus…

A Cynic in Wonderland

Gargi

Gawker (Hope this helps him fight the strong desire to write another towel guy post )

KM

Patrix

Vijay

Haiku away!

Post edited to add:? I should have said this before, but here goes – this tag is not restricted to the tagees alone.? Perhaps I just tagged you, or I don’t know that you would be interested in haiku, or even that you lurk on my blog.? If you are reading this, yes, I am talking to you.? Please skip over to the comments section, and just haiku!?

Not any longer. BlueMist has tagged me to reveal ten secrets about myself. I am wondering how one goes about revealing secrets. I mean, how do I know what they are?

There are many things you don’t know about me, but I don’t know them myself, so we are all good there. Then there is the stuff that everyone seems to know about me except myself.  Like, I realized the other day that I am actually quite dim at times. You know, IQ of a chimpanzee and all that.? I mentioned this to R, but it turns out he has known this for a long time. Looks like it was a secret only to me

Okay, so you are now going to sit me down and explain stuff like the Johari window and say that all you are interested in is the stuff that I know, but you don’t know. And I know that you don’t know, but though I write endlessly about myself in this blog, I haven’t written about it. That stuff.

So that’s what you want. I think. So here goes:

Ten secrets you didn’t know about me (and trust me, you don’t really want to know either):

1. I hate talking about myself. I am sure you don’t know this, especially since I am always talking about myself on this blog, but it’s true, I really don’t like doing it. So next time you roll your eyes at some post which is solely about myself, you should feel better at the thought that I really don’t like doing it!  And imagine, if I actually liked doing it, how much worse it would be!

2. I can also be a good listener. Once, I sat in a bus in Delhi and listened to a stranger tell me her entire life story. I guess she was bored. I wasn’t.

3. In school, I would write hilarious poems that parodied the textbook poems. I once wrote a parody of Ogden Nash’s “Confessions of a born spectator” that my class loved. It was called “Confessions of a class teacher.”? Unfortunately, I have no idea where it is now ? Which is perhaps just as well.

4. I know several Indian languages. This is what happens when you keep moving around the country. You want to make sure you understand what your classmates are sniggering about, just in case it’s about you. Oh, and especially if it’s about you.

5. I live in suburbia. The roadsides have grass (though no cows), and tall trees and birds and all those things. But you have to drive miles to get a bottle of milk.

6. I would like to go trekking again in the Himalayas. The last time I did that was so long ago I have probably lost the patent rights to that memory.

7. I will read anything. All sorts of books, of course, and medical journals (I am not a doctor) or scientific research papers (I am not a scientist or a researcher). I am the one who blissfully buries herself in the bacteria-covered magazines in dentists’ offices. I even read the paper that they make paper bags out of and those paper cones in which they sell you roasted peanuts.

8. I don’t drink coffee. This makes me a minority in a country of coffee drinkers, and like all minorities, I am discriminated against. Every hotel room I go to has three different varieties of coffee, but most do not have a single tea bag. Worse, I am not even sure whom to complain.

9. I have a green thumb. No, I don’t mean I smashed it against a door hinge. I mean metaphorically, you know, growing things. I don’t mean the growing of strange organisms in the refrigerator, though I have found that I can be quite good at it too. I mean, it’s a great experience to plant a ten foot tall tree and find that not only has it survived, but it has soon grown to fifteen feet.

10. I don’t watch much television. This is why I don’t write long reviews of “Are you smarter than a 5th grader”. Of course, it might also be because I am afraid to find out.

That’s such a relief – I have actually finished this thing!? I deserve a nourishing drink right now.

But before that, to tag five people…I hope know you guys are better at doing this than I am..

A-Kay

Dipali (now that she is back to blogging!)

Rads

Shyam

Usha

Happy revealing!

The rules of the tag are:

Pick up the nearest book.
Open to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the next three sentences.
Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

So I picked up the nearest book – Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001: The Final Odyssey” and opened to page 123. What do I find ? Page 123 only has six lines in two sentences.

So the fifth sentence in page 123 is technically the third sentence in page 124. You could argue that it’s all within the spirit of the tag, and I should now start quoting from page 124. But I must have some German blood in me, for I decided to take the rules literally.

So I sighed and opened the other book lying beside it, the one I had just finished reading. It was Terry Pratchett’s “The Light Fantastic”. I suspect I was re-reading this after many years, but I loved it anyway. I can read Terry Pratchett any number of times. I first started reading his books long years ago at the British Council library, and was introduced to Neil Gaiman through his books. I read their collaborative effort “Good Omens” because of Terry, not because I knew anything about Neil back then.

Anyway, I opened page 123 and was very relieved to see it had more than eight sentences. In point of fact, it had eighteen, but all I needed were eight. So here are the 6th, 7th and 8th sentences:

“If that was you, Twoflower, I knew it was you all along,” said Rincewind. His voice sounded suddenly clear and very alone in the gathering dusk.

Rincewind remembered the only fact he knew for sure about trolls, which was that they turned to stone when exposed to sunlight, so that anyone who employed trolls to work during daylight had to spend a fortune in barrier cream.

Having done the tag, I wish I had more discretion on which sentences in page 123 to quote. For instance, sentences 4 and 5 had a lot of good stuff about talking yew trees..

Now to tag 5 others. I would have liked to tag Space Bar, but she has decided to quit blogging for some time (no doubt, she saw this tag coming). But the rest of you guys cannot escape! Unless you’ve already done the tag, which I doubt (yes, I checked)

??!

Aishwarya

Chennai ramblings (Okay, I am cheating a bit here, I know she’s probably reading Sandman)

Ideasmith

Sujatha

Isn’t this a great tag? You don’t have to answer long surveys. You don’t even have to figure out which animal you look most like. You don’t have to write a long post…

I came up with a few options for a six word memoir. The more I look at them, the more I think that I really should delete this post and forget all about the tag. But I did agree to do the tag, so I guess I don’t have a choice. So I’d like you to take a look at my attempts and let me know which one you like best..

As for me, I cannot decide.

I blog, therefore I am… opinionated?

I can be quite funny. Maybe.

Describe myself? Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

I blog. Nobody reads. Not surprising.

I am vegetarian. I veg out.

Celebrities write memoirs. Why not me ?

Growing plants makes me patient. Outpatient.

My life, in six letters – boring.

I am not tagging anyone.? Really.

Of course, you can always decide to take up the tag, which I strongly recommend. I’d love to read your memoirs, especially since they will not exceed 6 words

Or you can use the comments section to think up six word memoirs for yourself, or me, or anyone else.. just don’t say things like:

“You write nonsense. This is proof!”?

Or.. “Terrible! Surely you can do better?”

Some time back, J.D. Power tried to get me to do a satisfaction survey. The survey had some six pages of closely spaced questions and looked like it would take at least an hour. I tried to pass it on to R, who promptly passed it back to me. After a few rounds of passing the paper, the survey landed on the coffee table, where it promptly became a fixed accessory.

J.D. Power would not give up. They started sending me $1 bills with fresh copies of the survey. Was I supposed to be pleased or offended ? If they were going to pay me for my time, shouldn’t they pay me a reasonable billing rate? Like management consultants – $200/ hour? Instead, they were trying to pay me less than minimum wage! The horror!

I tried filling up the survey a few times but would give up after 5 questions (what else can you get for a dollar anyway?).? As more and more copies came in, the coffee table became full of surveys, all of which had the same 5 questions filled in.

After a few rounds of this, J.D. Power finally gave up. My guess is they ran out of dollar bills.

Why am I telling you all this? Because Dipali has tagged me.? I’m sure J.D.?Power ?would have been proud of her tag, for it looks as long as one of their surveys.? I wished she had tagged some more people too.. misery loves company, of course, but I had another thought – I could have copied all their answers, and finished the survey in no time!? But it’s just me..I am sure I must have done something to annoy her, and I am wondering what it is..

But I can’t wriggle out of this one, even if no one is sending me dollar bills. So here is my survey/ tag:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?

I wrote the date as 1/1/2007 !

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My New Year resolutions are always crafted with care, and meant to be broken. Of course I will make more next year. You can’t keep breaking the same resolution every year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Some friends and cousins did. But are they close? No, they all live quite far away..

4. Did anyone close to you die?

I live in suburbia. Naturally, the demographic of my area is more middle aged baby boomers, and less young couples. Did any of them pop off? Perhaps, but how would I know? Completely unchivalrous, discourteous they all are.. not one of them called me up to inform me before popping off

5. What places did you visit?.

The East Coast, the West Coast, the South and the Midwest. Yes, I know what you are thinking – I missed out on the North-west. Sigh.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?

400 days in the year. 26 hours a day.

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I really can?t tell one date from the other, they all look the same to me. The dates I ate in California were a lot fresher, though..

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Staying sane.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Staying sane. Insanity, I hear, comes with benefits. That explains why most of the celebrities in the news are certifiably insane.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Minor ones. Why, are you my insurance agent?

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Henredon furniture.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Mine !

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?

Everyone else?s..

14. Where did most of your money go?

Into other people’s wallets

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Watching my confused crab apple tree burst into pink flowers in fall (it’s supposed to flower in spring).

Walking into a deserted JFK in which every other flight was delayed or cancelled, and finding a sign saying “On Time” next to my flight. I was actually more suspicious than excited, but still…

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?

Masha Allah!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Both. Neither. Wait, is there a third option?

18. Thinner or fatter?

This is a toughie..I plead the Fifth.

19. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sleeping.

20. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Sleeping.

21. How will you be spending Christmas?

Huh? Christmas? I don’t know how I will be spending tomorrow

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?

Yes, with aforementioned crab apple tree. I hear it’s the fashion to marry trees these days..

23. How many one night stands?

I’m glad you asked. I want not one, but two night stands. In caramel colored wood..perhaps these.?? Or these.

24. What was your favourite TV programme?

Jay Leno. Naked Science (on Nat Geo).

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Yes, yes. I have a long list

26. What was the best book you read?

Well, errr..the best book I read in 2007 was ?The Furniture Factory Outlet Guide?. It saved me a ton of money

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

R! I discovered he can sing! Well, it may depend a little on how you define “sing”, but bah! that’s semantics.

28. What did you want and get?

Ha! I usually get what I want

29. What did you want and not get?

See above. If I don?t get it, I decide I don?t want it either

30. What was your favourite film of 2007?

Ratatouille.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

You really want to know? OK, don’t blame me then. I’ll tell you the good news first – I had a company-sponsored dinner. The bad news – I ate it at my desk and went on to work really late. C’est la vie.

How old was I? A year older, somewhat wiser..

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Getting a million dollar bonus. Especially in light of above

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?

Crow colored suits, mud colored blouses/ tops/ shirts.

34. What kept you sane?

You think I am sane? Really? Thanks..

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Sanjaya Malakar. I woke up on countless mornings to the radio hosts going ga-ga over him. Great entertainment to start the day

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Elections, elections, elections.

37. Who did you miss?

I miss people all the time. Sometimes I miss part of one ear, sometimes I miss one hand. But that’s because I am not aiming at them, I am aiming my camera at the birds/ flowers/ stones beside them.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Sigh. I never met any new persons. The newest person I met was at least 6 months old..

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.

To resist the temptation to watch Indian movies in the US in theaters. The movie watching experience comes free with seedy theaters, bawling babies and loud and continuous stage whispers?

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

What! You want me to sing paeans to a year that’s been gone for two months now? It’s not even going to come back, is it? So what else except “ja ja ja re bewafa” ?

OK, I am done. I really don’t want to tag anyone with this. But then, The Girl from Ipanema has been heard to actually want tags.? I even promised her one, some days back.? So shouldn’t I, umm, live up to my promise?? Of course, I didn’t know it was going to be this one.? But maybe she will enjoy this.? Maybe she completes all her surveys.. aren’t researchers really patient people?? So I will tag The Girl From Ipanema.

The rules of the tag are : Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Yes, I just heard the sound of a dozen people rushing for the exit. Why do people dislike recycled posts, or recycled jokes? Isn’t recycling a great thing to do?

But for those of you who are still on this page, I am certain you will be richly rewarded. I am not certain exactly how, but it involves increasing patience, speed-reading and practising your (Harry Potterish) curses/ spells. Expecto EndOfPage might work, or Silencio WillYouPlease, or NoMora OfYourPostus. Other ideas are welcome.

Here are the links. Yes, you do have to click on at least one of these posts, and comment. I will be checking for comments. No, you can’t get away, so there.

Family: This one was easy. It’s the poem I wrote when my brother completed his Ph.D.

Friend: This is tough. I just realized that I haven’t written about any friends in my blog. Not good. But hey, R is also a friend, right ? So here is a post about R, cricket and sleeping (no, that’s not in order of priority )

Yourself: This blog is all about me as it is, so which posts do I choose? Did you know that I can hear sounds that no one else does ?

Love: What are the things I love? After Sleeping, I love Eating. Unfortunately, this involves Cooking, which I am not at all fond of. In my defense, I do try to cook, and I know I am doing lots of good. After all, there’s nothing like bad cooking to aid weight reduction. My (mis)adventures involve making apple pie and samosas, among other things.

Anything I like: I am not a big fan of watching TV. Definitely not NFL, but then you all know that.

I like watching the geese in my backyard pond, stepping on freshly fallen snow, and making up imaginary stories about real people.

I also like to write scifi, and I can tell you how astronauts will take over Mars by sneezing. As you can see, I have many talents, even if all of them are useless.

Now, I have to tag five other people (including at least 2 new acquaintances) to continue the good work of recycling. I am going to pick 5 people whose blogs I love to read. Unlike me, they have been blogging for years and have great blog posts to show off (also unike me). I must admit a selfish intent here – I’d love to know what posts they like best. It saves me the trouble of trawling their blog

So here are the bloggers you should all rush off to see:

Anantha
Bombay Addict
KM
Neha
Space Bar

I hope all of you decide to take up the tag. You can, of course, be creative. So Anantha, if you choose to include Rajni or Dilbert among your friends (or family?), I will believe you

But all good things come to an end. Now that Dipali has tagged me, I feel like a student caught out by the professor. “Hey, you in the back row, doodling away. Can you tell me blah blah blah.” I am usually pretty good at coming up with startling insights at these moments (startling me most of all). Unfortunately, the professor would then decide I was actually listening closely all along, and take my random statements seriously. That cannot be good, surely..

I am not very sure what I am supposed to write about, but Dipali’s post is about 10 things she hopes to achieve by age 60 and 10 things she misses. That sounds great, though it does mean that (a) I have to think (always a bad sign); and (b) I have to talk about myself. Worse, this sounds dangerously close to those questions they ask you in interviews – “how do you see yourself in 10 years?” Much as you’d like to say “retired, in a deck chair on a private beach” or “definitely as your boss’s boss”, you mumble something and hope it’s all good.

But I am going to do this right. Of course, I shall first negotiate. Is it okay if I just mention five of each? I really don’t want you to think this is some kind of Statement of Purpose. Here we go then.

Five things I hope to achieve by age 60 (in no particular order) :

1. Switch to Linux. Sometime, someday. I shall format my hard drive and erase every last trace of Microsoft. That day will surely come..
2. Time travel. Or walk on the moon. Surely I can hope, right? No? Well, then. How about, Visit Antarctica?
3. Write a book. A funny, bestselling book. Or maybe a book that no one will read. I will make sure it has a beautiful cover though, and hope people will buy it because it looks good on their shelves
4. Have a full head of natural blond hair. I already have a few strands of gray hair, and strangely, they look more golden than gray. At this rate, by sixty, I should have a full head of blond hair without dyeing anything. On the flip side, no doubt, my brain will also asymptotically decline to blond-levels by then.
5. Hmm, I can’t think of anything else now. I know, it’s the blond hair. So I shall say what I see young women on TV contests say whenever they stop thinking: World Peace.

Five things I miss (in no particular order) :

1. Climbing trees and spending lazy afternoons on the tree. Not that I still would not do it, who knows, I just might. But sadly the trees around here are quite unclimbable.
2. Bunking class to go to a movie. I never did this in school. Definitely had my priorities backwards, as you can see. Now it is too late, of course. No? You think I should join some course just so I can bunk it? Good idea. With full fellowship, of course.
3. Imitating cuckoos’ songs. It gets funny when they start singing back to you, thinking you are one of them. I must have broken quite a few cuckoo hearts. Sadly, the cuckoos I meet now are of the human, not avian variety.
4. Being two feet tall. Seriously, I wonder how I saw the world as a kid.
5. Stuffing myself with pink cotton candy. I was at this game the other day and spent half the time watching the candy seller slowly approach my seat. Just when I thought, here we go, I get to eat candy, he moved away. I watched in horror as he kept moving all the way to the other side of the stadium. Now you know why I walked out at half-time in disgust.

I now get to the part where I tag others. I shall tag Kamini, tabula rasa and Siri. And all of you lurkers, you are all tagged! Please tell me about yourselves

Oh, it is perfectly okay if you ignore the tag. I know, it’s hard to do these things. On the other hand, if you do write, I will be reading. You see, it’s hard to write these things, but it’s great fun to read them