Professionally innocent

My friend called this weekend, after she read the previous blog on CUSAT Arts Festival. We relived those old-but-gold memories of graduation. She hanged up after a while, but I was still stuck with the CUSAT times.

To a large percent of the population, professional colleges have become turning points in lives. Its you who choose to be good or bad, Its you who choose to be what you are,.. And some of you who would have joined the college, so naïve, so innocent,…. would be tuned,tamed and moulded into experts in technology and many other ‘subjects’ during these years.

It is during these years that girls (at least in Kerala) slowly overcome their timid, apprehensive, reticent attitude and show their inquisitiveness on one of the most important, rather interesting topics – sex. These 3 letters are deleterious, is what the parents normally teach children. Anyone who has a boy friend is taught to be treated as untouchables.When they hear about their daughter’s friend, whose sister has a boy friend, whose friend has seen an x-rated movie, the daughter would be asked to divorce that friend and keep no further contact. Good logic, eh?

Now, why I keep on mentioning ‘girls’ is because ‘boys’ somehow manage to jump out of this loop and find their on ways. Most parents have an explanation to this. “Afterall, they are boys…”Oh yes? Makes lot of sense!!

Under the impression of protecting their daughters, the parents are actually holding them so tight, that the children find no room to grow. No wonder that these ‘naïve’ girls, are either made use of or misuse their freedom, after they land in professional colleges..

However, during the millennium, when we joined CUSAT, there were a few in this category. So during one of the girls-only combined study sessions, topic got deviated a bit and the ones who knew, lined up to educate the ones who didn’t. I scored 50/100, and so was a moderator :-).  The class was done, but the talks went onto aligned topics, one of which was masturbation. Too much knowledge in one day, had made the class weary. But they were still ready for more KA, Knowledge-Acquisition. To remind the class about the seriousness of the subject, Neethu* – the most educated of all, quoted an example. She talked about a girl who had to be taken to the hospital as the test tube that she used for masturbation had broken inside her. There were frowns,grin and sympathy among the class for the poor female. But it all changed to a big embarrassment, when Lekha* asked, “So is that how test tube babies are born?”.

And this is why they are called naïve.

And this is why some parents should grow up.

And this is why Sex Education should be included in the curriculum.

* Identity not disclosed.