By the time we finished research for this story, the one reason we felt proudest about being a ’90s kid was the sustained conversation we witnessed around the most dreaded condition of the decade—Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the resulting Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

This writer has memories of Shabana Azmi’s awareness campaign on TV where she visits an AIDS ward, hugs a child, and turns to the camera to say, “Iss tarah pyaar faelta hai”, dispelling the belief that the disease spreads through touch. An even more vivid memory is a classmate summing up James Bond’s risqué lifestyle in one sentence: “He pukka has AIDS.” An 11-year-old boy’s cognisance of the disease’s connection with unprotected sexual intercourse and multiple partners is testimony to the effective awareness caused by tidal waves of campaigns.