look! a ray of hope :)

Scene 1
 venue : college library hall
 event : finals of debate competition

The very young and energetic finalists of the debate competition are discussing "Gandhian principles" when they digress and start commenting on Gandhi's personal life.
and a little before the moderator could bring them back on track, they discuss the word "lust".

I know, I know... I can almost hear the "so what"? ringing in your head! there wasn't a  moment of discomfort in the crowded hall. Cheering went on, arguments continued
and we enjoyed supporting our favourite teams. What's the big deal about discussing "lust", right? Wrong!!! Later a senior member of the management who was the chief guest, objected to
the use of that word. he even suggested in his speech that students  should leave out "such delicate topics" from their discussions the next time. *sigh*

Scene 2
venue : classroom
event : yet another debate competition of another department

I have now changed the rows, and have shifted from the audience to the judge's chair. Feels great. My co judge is a senior professor in the same institution. The topic for the first round
for two teams is "age of consent for sexual activity in India and abroad". Both the teams are good with words and are beautifully discussing the hazards/advantages of early sex,
LGBT, puberty, maturity etcetera. My co judge looks uncomfortable. May be he is finding it too hard to digest that they are even talking about it. In the questions round, he asks a participant
if "he would accept a girl who has already had sex at an "early" age to be his wife"? The smile on my face has disappeared and I cant find even a fake one. Further on, he offers to send both the teams to the next round, because their topic was "more difficult than everybody else".

For me, the only thing that is more difficult than screaming now is - not screaming!!!

But thinking about it now, I am smiling. I feel great pleasure to see the students openly discussing sex, sexuality and their opinions about it. Its a grater pleasure to know that they even HAVE an opinion about it.

I see more reasons to congratulate the organisers for including such topics than to feel sorry for the mentality of the past generation.
May be we are rising above ourselves. May be I see *Hope* *Peace* *Joy* *Freedom*

Comments

  1. bonnyApril 19, 2015 at 12:14 AM

    My question to you is, which debate was organized better ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. GeetaApril 19, 2015 at 12:21 AM

      I choose not to answer that :P thats off the topic

      Delete
  2. UnknownApril 19, 2015 at 12:18 AM

    Yup...a ray of hope indeed ! But let's just be patient...let everybody catch the train/ bus/ flight/ rocket :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownApril 19, 2015 at 12:04 PM

    The gandhian lust or an early age sex were indeed the topics which were of much higher aspects, the platform to look into those ideas from the ignited minds in their perspective was amazing, no much thought variation would be seen in the age group of 19 - 35.

    ReplyDelete

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