The Small Cee

The small C
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

There was a time when advertisements for condoms featured sensuous young women like Pooja Bedi and Viveka Babajee. When these advertisements appeared on TV, my young sons usually looked away. The message was very clear: this was adult business as indeed condoms used to be.

But what happens when Rahul Dravid in all his clean-cut earnestness is pitching the message of condoms and staying AIDS-free on primetime? Rahul Dravid is a hero, not just for those who most need the AIDS message, but also for a whole generation of under 12s. When Rahul comes on screen, what you expect him to endorse is the big C:Cricket, or cricket memorabilia, healthdrinks, sportswear, or crisps, and the kids are all ears. They are not familiar with the product their hero is endorsing, but it confuses the brat audience and makes them as Alice would say,"curiouser and curioser" about it. Suddenly, condoms and AIDS are not adult business anymore.

Of late the talking point for cricket babies has been Rahul Dravid endorsing condoms, unabashedly. Naturally, there is trouble ahead, for parents and grandparents, of the legions of Dravid fans. Because the next logical question from inquisitive young minds is: What is a condom and what is AIDS ? Well AIDS is a disease, easy enough, but what of condoms? Yes, Rahul, wish you could help field those googlies. Grandma tries hard and says its a balloon. Grandpa says it's plastic underwear. Dad says it's a groin-guard cricketers wear. So when the bratpack gets down to comparing notes, the result is one confused and hyper-inquisitive bunch of young minds, looking for more.

Threshold levels for awareness are at an all-time high with satellite TV and the internet-enabled generation. Ten-year olds today ask questions about stuff we discovered in our twenties. But strangely, yet gratifyingly, no matter what the information or where they pick it up from, they still do seem to need adult ratification for it. And that's where I develop the heeby-jeebies. I'm mortally afraid of losing credibility and authority. It's a lose-lose situation: If you tell them a bird and bee story, you run the risk of appearing stupid and lose reliability. And if you tell them too much you impact on their innocent psyche, detrimentally presumably.

I have often wished some psychologist would publish a handbook on how to explain the tricky facts of life to growing children. There is help now apparently from TARSHI's Blue and Red books and Manjula Lal's I-File.

Outlook recently published the results of an urban survey of four Metros that indicates that one in four of 13-17 year olds has had a physical experience. Can you blame them? There is a constant barrage of suggestive messages being sent out through iconic satellite TV channels such as MTV and Channel V.

Even the Punjabi and desi channels carry repeats of videos of the “Kaanta laga” genre. Clothes and attitude are all invested with an “in-your-face” sexuality. I believe it’s time that parents and schools sat up and took note and realised the importance of calling in the experts. Whether it is counselling or workshops supervised by psychologists, some form of formal institutional input is both urgent and imperative so that the young ones can dispel their doubts about physicality and urges lose their novelty and curiosity value. More significantly, if the young are correctly informed, they can make responsible choices and decisions about their behaviour and relationships.