Thomas, to say the least, pursues an unusual passion. Professionally, he's a goalkeeper for the Customs hockey team, but that's not exactly what he lives for. As a matter of fact, he's taken up enough with the task of spreading the awareness of AIDS in the society. And he goes about it in a remarkably innovative manner. For one, he possesses an attackers alarm complete with a portable amplifier brought from the US for this very purpose. So that whether it is a crowded bus in Chandigarh or a morning train in Mumbai, you can count on him to trigger his alarm every now and then to attract attention to himself. As you can imagine, it serves its purposerather well, and it's all the inspiration Thomas needs to take off on a compelling monologue on the subject of AIDS.

Not surprisingly, on most occasions his well-meaning effort is greeted with exaggerated sniggers and coarse jokes, but there are times when it excites enough interest among some to make it all worthwhile. Like the case of the boy mentioned above. That kind of thing keeps him going. He likes to refer to his unique public campaign as a `Sports Mission', a nomenclature well justified by his being accompanied at times by South African cricket players Nichy Boje and Andrew Hudson as well as India's Abey Kuruvilla going out to play with the kids of the prostitutes at Mumbai's Kamathipura area. A typical day for him begins after he's through with his match fixtures, when he can set out for the city's red-light area. Out there, he finds a convenient corner to park himself before retrieving his contraption.

The press of a button and the alarm goes off, emitting a horrendously loud screech thatnever fails to attract attention.

No sooner is a sizable crowd gathered around him curious to find out what the racket is all about -- consisting mainly of `customers' in the area of course -- that he hollers out his battle cry: ``Do minute ka maja, zindagi bhar ki saja.'' (A momentary pleasure, leading to a lifetime of suffering). Then it's time to produce his most potent weapon -- an illustrated, colour pictogram on AIDS. This is usually enough to spark sniggers and smirks from the back-benchers, even as a few in the front row display a bit of interest.

Thomas not only has to brave police lathis, but also pimps who are eager to thrash him for `disturbing their business'. And yet he doesn't let up on his message. ``I think the way the campaign against AIDS is being carried out encourages promiscuity. Condoms are not the answer but abstaining from multiple partners is the solution,'' he explains. Once he gets the pimps to listen to him, he even drags them to a mirror to show them their faces. He tellsthe `customers': ``Your wife is not watching but God is.'' A trifle dramatic, but it works.