What’s on prime time news these days? What is the nation debating about? World over, people are debating over the right age to impart "sex education", In India (a country of rich heritage, culture and all that, oh yaa its also the land of Kamasutra), talking about "birds and the bees" is still controversial, Its quite startling to see how this debate is taking moral and culture turns instead of actually debating how and when this knowledge has to be imparted. After all it wasn’t the storks who brought us to our moms. Well, this is just the start of double standards which Indians maintain. And if you are a woman, you are subjected to the societal double standards too, you cant really blame an Indian woman when she states that she has never held hands with a man, she is conditionally stating that she doesn’t have loose morals and values. Well I am not a feminist by any chance, but I do think there is a lot in this society in favor of men, maybe it is just the reflection of an age old tradition where the man was the only bread winner for the family and everything revolved around him, I know things are changing and that India as a nation itself is in a transition, so is its culture, and everything. We only hope, that as we move forward we take in the best of both worlds and not just ape the west. One of the major ways in which traditional societies control behavior of the young is by taboos. This is just a continuation of that mind set. Isn’t it a universal truth that when are asked to not do something, your curiosity levels are on the rise. It is high time that we realize, understanding human body and talking about human body parts is not a sin at all. The more you know, the more mature you will be and its definitely essential in a country like ours where diseases like HIV are on a rise in exponential variations, at least people will know how to be safe. If not in school, with the exposure that kids get these days, they are going to find the information from elsewhere which could be so misleading. Simply put, everybody has a right of information, and why should one be ashamed of learning about your own body and natural instincts. Without getting 'emotional' and 'subjective', do we get 'upset' when we read about how the world wars happened or when we read about the twin bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's part of the subject (history) but why not this. Well I agree, its a little touchy or a sensitive thing to handle or teach about, but teachers are professionals too, they are qualified to teach. If only a medical professor was embarrassed to talk about human body to his students or if you gynecologist starts blushing every time you go for a check up. Well not many parents may be forthcoming, it can at least be made an optional subject with only those students having parental consent. Well if you are wondering what is the connection between the subject and the whole write up, absolutely nothing :). These are just some random muses and that’s just my two cents.
