There's something timeless about the arrival of a street-theater group in the hustle-bustle bazaar of a small town like Palwal. The actors arrive, shouting, beating two-sided dholak drums, and donning kitschy costumes of golden tinsel.

A crowd naturally gathers. And then the actors pull a fast one. This is no mere entertainment. This is an educational program conducted by AIDS Walk for Life, a village to village tour by volunteers who are walking part - or all - of a more than 4,200-mile circuit around India. Their goal: to raise awareness about a disease that has already made India the country with the second-highest number of people living with HIV. The tour will conclude in Delhi Thursday, which is also World AIDS Day.

"In a country where so many people still know so little about the disease, the walk has been a dramatic and effective way to spread awareness," says Henry Alderfer of Project Concern International in India, the group sponsoring the walk.

To the surprise of the organizers, the vast majority of the walkers have been with the project from the get-go, walking mile after mile, bursting with energy each morning as they enter villages with banners and bullhorns, shouting, "Join hands together, defeat AIDS."

The walkers follow the national highway system - one of the key transmission routes for the virus. The highest concentrations of HIV cases are in the south and west of the country, in states where many working-age men travel abroad as laborers. From these states, the virus has spread along highways. Truckers and laborers pick it up from commercial sex workers, and take it to their wives, who sometimes pass it to their newborns.

"People to people, we have had a large effect," says Hemant Singh, a dance teacher from Delhi, who has been with the AIDS Walk from the start. "If you stay at home, you can't do anything about the problem."

Bharat Bhushan, logistics head from the state of Bihar, says the more powerful lessons come from teaching by example. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, they persuaded a family to welcome back an HIV positive family member. The family feared that HIV could be transmitted by touch, and worried also about the stigma of the disease. One AIDS walker solved this problem by hugging the person with HIV.

"They were afraid to touch his hands, to eat food with him," says Mr. Bhushan. "We said, 'See, I'm not infected and I'm doing this. You are their family members. When you discriminate against your own family member, then what will others do?' "

Efforts to raise awareness are just one of many ways that communities and agencies in India are meeting the challenge of the AIDS, an epidemic that has largely spread through unsafe sex, lack of hygiene, and illicit drug use. Yet there are recent signs that awareness programs like the AIDS Walk are some of the most effective methods for stopping the spread of AIDS and the HIV virus.

While the virus continues to spread in eastern Europe, Central and East Asia, and southern Africa - adding 5 million cases just this year worldwide - there have been noticeable declines in infection levels in Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Kenya, a fact that UN officials attribute to greater awareness and changes in behavior.

"In the two African countries [of Zimbabwe and Kenya] the declines in HIV rates have been due to changes in behavior," finds the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 report, issued by the UNAIDS program. "In other words, HIV-prevention efforts are working."

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