What Pratap thinks
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You know the type. The sort that thinks girls bring rape upon themselves by dressing ‘inappropriately’. Who think sex education in schools is a bad idea and will only encourage more promiscuous behaviour. Who think moral policing is all that is keeping this country from going to the dogs. Etcetera.
A close friend of mine fits the description. Let’s call him Pratap (since that is his name). We agreed to disagree a long time ago. Yet, certain days find us at each other’s throats, throwing opinions and ideas at each other and dodging cruel blows to our egos.
Last evening, in Bhubaneswar, the two of us fought over snacks in the presence of Manoj, a wise Piscean. I thought it would be a good idea to share the experience with you. Brace yourself. This is surreal.
We were discussing sex education in schools. He is against exposing children to ‘such ideas’ (he avoids using the S-word). That wouldn’t have mattered a lot if his definition of a child was not so inclusive. Anyone younger than him is innocent and therefore needs protection from corrupting influences.
“If you are going to allow ‘that’ in schools,” said Pratap, “…then be prepared to open an abortion centre in every school too.”
“I am not talking about encouraging children to have wanton sex,” I said. “But they need to know things. If the school or the parents won’t tell them, they will seek answers elsewhere.”
“But why can’t the school teach them yoga instead?” argued Pratap. “…so that they can control such urges.”
I closed my open mouth and asked, “Why should they? What is wrong with those urges? They are natural.”
I could also have mentioned that using yoga (which is essentially about harmony of body of mind) to ‘control’ parts of one’s natural growth is unhealthy. But I didn’t.
“But encouraging those urges causes so many crimes. There are so many rapes. People are engaging in extramarital activities. There are broken families and there is degeneration in society.” Pratap said.
I said, “I feel such crimes take place because of lack of communication. A kid’s curiosity about sex is met with no response, or worse, dire warnings like, ‘Don’t talk about things like that,’ he will naturally seek to find things out on his own. He may end up misguided and on the wrong path. A marriage may be saved if the partners are open to talking about sex and their respective needs with each other.”
Manoj mentioned that a recent survey showed that cases of AIDS and unplanned pregnancies as well as sex crimes were higher in numbers in villages than in the so called promiscuous towns.
Needless to say, he didn’t buy it. I told him there are no guarantees in life. I can’t promise that an open attitude will help crime rates. But nor can he if he thinks burying sex-talk will help. Wise men accept life for the gray place it is. Taliban look for blacks and whites.
I never did manage to convince him of anything. Never have. That was not my intention in any case. Pratap is not a unique man. There are many like him. Politicians target his kind for votes when they demolish temples, mosques and cyber-cafes.
Strange and otherworldly as Pratap’s views might seem to many of us, they are nevertheless the views of a significant majority of our countrymen. The sort that don’t want to hear you out. The sort that don’t take responsibility.
But they are not my concern. Nor are politicians. Do you know why I never leave Pratap to himself? Why I feel compelled to bombard him with things he really doesn’t want to be exposed to? Have you any idea why?
Pratap is going to be a teacher. That’s right. He is training to be a teacher. He has lofty ideas about bringing up the next generation of Indians on high ideals of morality and national culture.
I will make Pratap read this. Let him know what you think. Mince no words.
Posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 12:46 pm and filed under people, essays.
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[…] Vijayendra calls for your thoughts on his friend Pratap, with whom he had this conversation. We were discussing sex education in schools. He is against exposing children to ‘such ideas’ (he avoids using the S-word). That wouldn’t have mattered a lot if his definition of a child was not so inclusive. Anyone younger than him is innocent and therefore needs protection from corrupting influences. […]
The fear with which you mention your friend being a teacher surprises me. It’s not uncommon, that’s how quite a few of my teachers were.
In school we were made to believe that all “such” urges are wrong, instead of being taught that such urges are right, and taught to learn how to deal with them. The impact of this method of teaching doesn’t come during the impressionable years, it comes when one hits 18, is away from home, discovers, has misadventures, and faces the true pains of adulthood and responsibility.
In short, the education meted out to us was hardly useful in real life. And in the end, we all learnt our lessons the hard way. We gained perspective, and accepted the shades of grey.
So, as much as his lack of perspective bothers me, I am still glad Pratap is a teacher, it will be easy to forget the stuff.
Good luck trying to convert these people to the other side. Your frustrations can only be compared to Howard Roark’s frustrations with people wanting 16th Century Spanish outlooks for their homes. Been there felt that.
The reason why, I believe, we have a majority of our population goes this way is lack of education. And by education I don’t mean literacy, I mean “intellectual absorption, emotional appreciation and spiritual assimilation”: although literacy may be the first step in the process. We have a system that encourages blind faith rather than the perpetual questioner (the nail that sticks out gets hammered first). Obviously, people like your ‘friend’ Pratap find solace in blindly following a faith which everybody else seems to believe in rather than find things out for themselves. Never question a senior, never doubt what the “greats” have done before irrespective of why they did it: that is the gist of their philosophy — the fact that even some of these “greats” might have been wrong at times is beyond them. When the ideal boy is one who obeys every instruction, we don’t have much of a choice.
If Pratap exists and not as a strawman/figment, “Dude, you are not to be allowed within 10 kilometres of a school!”
There are 2 kinds of people. The first variety look at evidence and then decide on what they believe in, and the second kind decide what they believe in, and then look for evidence to support their belifs.
It’s quite clear that your friend is of the second type. You can show him all the studies, evidence and arguments that support your claim, but they’ll never budge from their position. George Bush is another example of this.
Be clear: Everything you say contrary to his beliefs is only going to make him cling more tightly to his view. He’ll feel his beliefs are under threat, and will ferociously defend them because his beliefs are everything to him.
Which begs the question, what are you and I going to do about it? Quite simply, nothing. Let them be. There is no way to turn them over. It is a lost cause.
Like you have rightly pointed out, this is the view that a majority of people in India hold.
We need to first make them see what it is that we mean by sex-education. Tell them about sex education and I think they have visions of teachers holding up porn magazines for the children to see.
Unlike what the Prataps think, it is not educating them on how-to be promiscuous but to show them what evil promiscuousness can wreck on their lives. Evils like AIDS, teenage pregnancy and the emotional turmoil that sex-with-the-wrong-types can lead to.
An oft-repeated question - “How does India manage to have such an ever growing population if we don’t do ‘that’?” A question that falls on the deaf ears of such intellectually-challenged people.
This is a country that celebrated sex in its carvings and in its literature. Yet, today’s culture-vultures thinks it is against our ethos and our “culture”.. Bah! You egg-headed pseudo-culturalists!
Send him to me.
Hello Pratap,
Do you know what are the 4 main goals of life according to Hindu tradition?
1). Dharma: Virtuous living.
2). Artha: Material prosperity.
3). Kama: Aesthetic and erotic pleasure.
4). Moksha: Liberation.
Kama shastra (Kama sutra) is attributed to Nandi the sacred bull, Shiva’s doorkeeper, who was moved to sacred utterance by overhearing the lovemaking of the god and his wife Parvati and later recorded his utterances for the benefit of mankind.
Kama shastra was taught in all the schools of ancient times. It was taught to all the princes. It was understood to be an essential goal of life.
It was taught during the golden age of India.
Do you want to take that away from the students of our generation? Do you want to make it so that they never fill fulfilled in life?
Feeling of non-fulfillment leads to increase in crime.
No knowledge of how to satisfy their partners leads to increase in extra marital affairs. It leads to the degeneration of the family unit. If you can satisfy your partners, will they ever stray?
Just like people with a lot of money don’t usually rob banks, people with sexual smarts don’t rape others. They don’t need to. Its the people without knowledge who rape.
Will you take responsibility for such heavy consequences by not teaching the current generation an essential element of life?
It’s sad put true that these kinds of characters exist, not in isolation but in hordes. And the debate will continue. However with the amount of exposure the media brings for a school-going kid leaving his questions unanswered will be the biggest crime.
Loved the perspective. Pratap is Pratap. Don’t even think of changing him. But never leave him alone too. I wonder if he doesn’t have place for “such things” in life. God bless his wife!
Well written boss, but wasn’t et cetera supposed to be two words?
Guess, there’s ample time for both types of education, sex education and yoga.
There are two aspects which needs to be considered. Sex education - definitely it will help, no STDs or say no unwanted pregnancies. But what about the urge, the monstorous desire injected into todays generation’s bloodstream by the society and the media (directly and indirectly).
Sex education might be a partial saviour but yoga can be the healer.