The scene at this bookstore is the usual. People walking around, children running hither-tither, soft music playing in the background, long queues at the billing counter, elderly folks sitting on the cushiony seats on the side of the shop, everybody enjoying the cool AC breeze. All of a sudden there is a noise by a gentleman. The calm flow of things is interrupted. This 20 something has everybody’s attention. His bone of contention? Someone had placed an adult book from the category called as ‘Soft p***’ in the front row and the young children running in front of it were catching a glance of it. What was on the cover of the book? A woman with skimpily clad clothes with some pieces covering her modesty.
This man didn’t give up till the store owners hid it/stashed away in some other corner. What was funny about the entire incident was that it looked so animated & staged; the guy himself was not convinced that he was backing the correct cause. If he cared so much he could have removed it himself and kept it elsewhere since it was a one-off case, where due to the convenience of the shelf someone could have easily placed it in the front rows. Sure this massaged his ego.
Let me also add that the guy didn’t have his kids running around the store. These were other’s kids whose exposure to things that he was protecting. The parents weren’t complaining. Going by the behavior of this guy, I was convinced that he didn’t really understand what he was doing or he himself was not exposed to the subject that he was protesting about. Why this He-Manly behavior Sir?’
One does understand that at a basic level he was trying to protect the innocence of kids but was there more to it? Trying to figure out the guy’s rationale, I could come up with the following explanations->
A. Learned behavior- He must have seen this behavior in his circle of folks doing this in the past. Without questioning the times during which these behaviors were acceptable, he would have followed. This is not to say it is right or wrong.
B. Offense- He really felt offended at the way a woman was portrayed in the book. Good reason but not strong enough to be using kids as his crutch.
C. Embarrassment & Denial- May be he felt embarrassed to be looking at anyone in their most primal form.
D. Indian culture- This was against the Indian culture. Would anyone pls care to tell us what this is all about?
This is reality people. We see ourselves display such twisted behavior time and again. I’m also one of them but atleast I accept and admit that it is flawed. What the book-shop was trying to do was to display a book on its shelves – doing business. Trust me it wasn’t even a title that was on the best-sellers list. It was just lying around. Then why this drama.
Let’s remind ourselves that India has reached a population of 1.2 Billion and has surpassed many other countries. So have we reached here without our knowledge of the ‘S’ word or was it our dharma that we were fulfilling or were we just pushed into this by the society? We talk about this as if no one knows a thing, when the fact is, it happens in every household of the world. Then what are we hiding and hushing about?
It is this same guy who is talking in a hush-hush tone in your own country goes abroad to put a poster of a completely disrobed model in his bedroom. Why? Since this is a foreign land my inhibitions & cultures don’t hold true here. I need to blend in, you know. Indian movies are not far. How about Sheila ki Jawani or Chikni Chameli or Jalebi Bai? The censor board wouldn’t cut out such things but lip-lip is a big no-no. If you look at our society you can find lot many ironies in here.
In contrast, when we visit temples there are thousands of sculptures that depict man-woman in various states and forms. I have never seen anyone complain about these or trying to break down our temples or parents covering the eyes of their children, why because they are preserves of the past, they are our heritage. They are gods and goddesses. Our big mythological mainstays the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are replete with stories of union. After all weren’t we the ones to come out with the world famous KS manual.
Do you think cultures & people, outside of India are unaware of this duality of our thoughts or they don’t see this hypocrisy of ours? They do. But they have their own hypocrisies to deal with. Nonetheless, there is certainly a vast chasm between how we behave in public and what we do in private. (oh, in private, this btw is none of my business).
I know you are already feeling offended at me broaching this topic in an open forum like this. But where else do I go folks? It is you and me who have to change this. If we are so uncomfortable talking about this amongst adults, then I don’t know how we are going to safeguard our children.
We want all good things of the west but all things come with their pros and cons. What we consider bad of another society need not necessarily be, if it doesn’t mesh well with our culture. If it still exists there, then it is certainly serving them well. It’s a different matter if we find it unpalatable. There is no way we can overlook it or stop it. All we can do is to find a way to deal with it, accept it or change our outlook. I believe our culture has the strongest of capabilities to mingle with others and come out with its own desi-workable version.
The point I’m trying to make is there needs to be more sensitization around this entire issue. This topic is neither arcane nor exotic. It is very mundane & has passed through generations. The more openly we discuss it…Ok..let me rephrase that, the more educated we get about it, the more safer we are as a society. How?
We are trying to protect younger generations who have access to lots of other means and resources. It is beyond the reach of any human being to keep a tab on their kids 24X7, without having full time nannies & spies around. Hardly a case in our times. The age of innocence is gone and it’s never coming back. We live in the age of exposure which demands of our children to grow up faster than ever. So what are you & I supposed to do?
The same. Grow up. Faster than them. Learn more. Read up, Read more & Reach out. Understand yourself first what happens. Half knowledge is any day more dangerous. Let’s ask ourselves how we learned about this. Some info here and some info there and we formed a picture. Nobody cared to validate this pic neither did we know how far from the truth were we. Your fears & ignorance are not worth passing on. After all who made this entire affair unhealthy?
Gender awareness and gender sensitization are on the top of the list. Kids learn about bees and birds in schools, then why not our very own anatomy? Mothers all over the world teach their children about good & bad touch. If earlier this used to happen in the teens, now it is happening even before coz there are innumerable cases where kids in school don’t even realize what is being done to them and shy away talking about it, since this is the kind of treatment the topic has deserved in their household? It’s time to make room for more open conversations for our kids to come and talk to us. Make yourselves available. If we shy away, whom will they talk to, unless you want your kids to turn into social wrecks.
Don’t scare them of this topic. This is not to say that you become very overt and shout this from rooftops. We all grow and learn in different ways. There are several adult books in the market which formalize this process and make these topics edible and consumable for the young adults. It is absolutely essential that this veil of half-baked knowledge is kicked out. Kids deserve to know this. If we don’t encroach on this topic someone/something else would, making them more vulnerable.
There might also be this thought process where people are going to think that by making kids aware of all this at an early stage aren’t we empowering them, more than required. The answer is yes. But the more you hide, the more it is going to titillate and itch. Our Dikhao-Dhakao (Show-Hide) mode culture is outdated and reflects of a regressive society & thought process. The call is ours. Finally, if you ask me to re-imagine the original book store incident in my head again, this is how it will go. The 20-something guy is creating a noise about a book; a young boy passes by him, winks his eye and says ‘Brother, Take it easy, I know about it, read it in school, It’s called Biology’. Let’s move on, shall we?
