LIVING WITH AIDS
For thirty years, HIV shaped my life.
This book is not simply my story.
It is a tribute to the ordinary people—patients, nurses, outreach workers, doctors, caregivers and friends—whose quiet courage changed countless lives but who were rarely remembered by history.
WHY THIS BOOK
A life shaped by more than illness
In 1997, an HIV diagnosis felt like a death sentence. Treatment was beyond reach. Stigma could be as dangerous as the virus itself. Yet, across Nepal and around the world, people living with HIV, outreach workers, doctors, activists, caregivers, friends and families were quietly changing what survival could mean.
Living with AIDS follows one life through addiction, diagnosis, public disclosure, activism, leadership, collapse, recovery and the unexpected work of beginning again.
At its heart, it asks a different question: not simply how one man survived, but how many people made that survival possible.
For many years, I believed the defining force in my life had been pain.
Addiction leaves marks.
HIV leaves marks.
Loss leaves marks.
Stigma leaves marks.
But while writing this memoir, I began asking myself a different question: If pain can shape a person, perhaps love can too.
— From Living with AIDS (1996–2026)
The book is only the beginning
The Living with AIDS Project is being created as a long-term home for stories that history rarely preserves: the stories of patients, nurses, outreach workers, doctors, activists, caregivers and community leaders whose quiet courage changed the course of the HIV response.
History is not changed only by famous people. It is changed by ordinary people who quietly keep showing up.
Over time, this site will grow into a digital archive of stories, conversations, photographs and memories from communities around the world.
For now, we begin with one memoir—and an invitation to remember together.
About Rajiv Kafle
Rajiv Kafle is a Nepali HIV and drug-policy activist, community organizer and social entrepreneur. After learning that he was living with HIV in 1997, he became one of Nepal’s earliest public voices on HIV, treatment access and the rights of people who use drugs.
Over three decades, he worked with community networks, governments and international organizations across Asia and beyond. Living with AIDS is his first book. He now lives in Oklahoma, where he is building a new life while continuing to preserve the stories of the people and movements that made survival possible.
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