Dial T for TamilNadu
Claimer: This is a post that I wanted to follow my previous post about Sex-ed. But since I am in a super good bubbly/giggly mood, this takes a funny turn.
I wanted to write about the path a boy takes to educate himself, in the "matters of procreation". A tamil girl's story would have been a million times more interesting with lots of embarrassing mishaps and festives about her functional organs, but I believe I am too under-qualified to write like that because you see, I am guy (duh!). But a Tamizhachchi (means a tamil woman) has written it so wonderfully, that makes everybody else's take on sex-ed redundant.
So, to fill the void, I am going to write about my experiences with the inevitable truth.
I am guy, who was born and brought up in Madras, TamilNadu. My parents were educated and education was their primary goal for me. I was in a semi-orthodox, liberalism aware surrounding that would be my perfect setting, for healthy mental and physical growth. The school I went to was a well disciplined one quite at the top of technology and the works. So, this kind of modern setting, should have had the maturity to teach sex-ed, right?
If you had thought so, you have never met a Tam person in your life. You see, Madras is not boring like other places in India like Bombay or Delhi. In Madras, there is a golden rule of not curbing the kid's fun by boiling down the whole "havin-fun" to a mere paintings of sexually mature male and female homo-sapiens in cross-section. Our custom does not allow us to show us that kind of pictures except as objects under study for scientific observation. Our parents/teachers only want us to see the real thing!
When I was a kid I was weird (still my name is "kid") because I tried to understand things with what limited knowledge I had. This how I used to think and I am going to let you into my personal experience. This a 10 year old, OK! so don't expect him to know too much.
Oh! All married people have kids, so marraige must have done something to them to make babies. The fallacy in this thought obviously is that I failed to see that difference between correlation and causation.
So, I remember seeing a movie in which the girl gets pregnant is so is forced to get married to that guy. What ?? How is that possible... I thought marriage did something to people (3 days of marriage and a profound first night and all...). So, marriage is not a cause, but a after effect. But wait, many people have kids only many years after marriage... So, this marriage thing has no correlation or causation to kid making process. Wow... what a fallacy. Now I am all the more curious as to how kids or born... and more importantly, how was I born!
My mom was a very smart lady and told me that a very nice lady came to her and gave me to her when I was a few days old... so my mom supposedly does not know how I was born. Yeah right, mom!
By now it had taken me like 2 years to understand the irrelevance of marraige to the baby making thing. I was 12. I had started with something, but now I had just come to know that what little I knew was wrong. Back to square zero. Where was I?
An interesting and fortunate thing happened. We had a human reproduction chapter in our biology book. Now, I devoured the chapter even before the school started. I was now armed to facts like females have eggs, males have fishy sperms which goes and makes this ovum his girlfriend. Too many spermies swimming around, but only one hits the girl, and then placenta, ovarian wall swells, amniotic fluids, trimesters, oestrogen, fallopean tube, corpus luteum, gonadotropins... Oooooh! I see. Wait what the hell is this ? yuckk.
I understood quite few in that age, about the periodic hormonal cycles in women, menstruation, about the ovaries that alternately ovulate in women and the about 300 eggs that get down the tube out of the million or so that gets started when a baby girl is born. Now, I was mowed over by these facts that I thought the guy's flagellated sperm meets the girlfriend's ovum and TADA a baby is formed. Awesome. I was happy for 2 years when I was flouting my enlightenment.
(cut to the next 4-5 years)
What the hell is happening to me ? That girl looks good... wait a min, I should concentrate on what is at stake here. Maybe if I talk to her and sit next to her, maybe one of my sperms might just swim to her and I could be the father... better to stay away from her. But how come all others are talking and kissing without getting pregnant? The girls must be using contraceptives (you should realize that I was in 12th standard (12th grade) and thought all the girls who were talking+holding hands+sitting together+eating together with boys were taking contraceptives)
I did not read about this anywhere... what is going on? oh man! I need to find another book! I did not get a book, but what I got was a CD. My friends welcomed me to the world of yucky videos aka soft-porn movies... actually it was just "Titanic". Remember the scene is Titanic where they do something in a car and she suddenly slaps the windows and then the hand goes down? Oh! people have to do something THAT exciting ?? hmm I see. I guess it must be a lot of fun! So, holding hands and touching does not really transfer the contagious sperms... They actually DO something special, something real physical ! Maybe a french kiss really long and hard or something.
At this point, I was 17 and knew where the sperm was produced and the average count, and where the ovum resides and for how long, but just could not make the connection. Ignorance was then quickly vanquished with the help of some special friend of mine who happened to have some real porn, seeing which I promptly puked the first 4 times before accepting the fate that someday I would have to stand naked before a girl to have a little fun!
So you see, guys from Tamil Nadu did not have to hear this uncomfortable grossness from their visibly embarrassed father but have the opportunity to be driven by curiosity to their enlightenment in the safe and friendly environment.
I wanted to write about the path a boy takes to educate himself, in the "matters of procreation". A tamil girl's story would have been a million times more interesting with lots of embarrassing mishaps and festives about her functional organs, but I believe I am too under-qualified to write like that because you see, I am guy (duh!). But a Tamizhachchi (means a tamil woman) has written it so wonderfully, that makes everybody else's take on sex-ed redundant.
So, to fill the void, I am going to write about my experiences with the inevitable truth.
I am guy, who was born and brought up in Madras, TamilNadu. My parents were educated and education was their primary goal for me. I was in a semi-orthodox, liberalism aware surrounding that would be my perfect setting, for healthy mental and physical growth. The school I went to was a well disciplined one quite at the top of technology and the works. So, this kind of modern setting, should have had the maturity to teach sex-ed, right?
If you had thought so, you have never met a Tam person in your life. You see, Madras is not boring like other places in India like Bombay or Delhi. In Madras, there is a golden rule of not curbing the kid's fun by boiling down the whole "havin-fun" to a mere paintings of sexually mature male and female homo-sapiens in cross-section. Our custom does not allow us to show us that kind of pictures except as objects under study for scientific observation. Our parents/teachers only want us to see the real thing!
When I was a kid I was weird (still my name is "kid") because I tried to understand things with what limited knowledge I had. This how I used to think and I am going to let you into my personal experience. This a 10 year old, OK! so don't expect him to know too much.
Oh! All married people have kids, so marraige must have done something to them to make babies. The fallacy in this thought obviously is that I failed to see that difference between correlation and causation.
So, I remember seeing a movie in which the girl gets pregnant is so is forced to get married to that guy. What ?? How is that possible... I thought marriage did something to people (3 days of marriage and a profound first night and all...). So, marriage is not a cause, but a after effect. But wait, many people have kids only many years after marriage... So, this marriage thing has no correlation or causation to kid making process. Wow... what a fallacy. Now I am all the more curious as to how kids or born... and more importantly, how was I born!
My mom was a very smart lady and told me that a very nice lady came to her and gave me to her when I was a few days old... so my mom supposedly does not know how I was born. Yeah right, mom!
By now it had taken me like 2 years to understand the irrelevance of marraige to the baby making thing. I was 12. I had started with something, but now I had just come to know that what little I knew was wrong. Back to square zero. Where was I?
An interesting and fortunate thing happened. We had a human reproduction chapter in our biology book. Now, I devoured the chapter even before the school started. I was now armed to facts like females have eggs, males have fishy sperms which goes and makes this ovum his girlfriend. Too many spermies swimming around, but only one hits the girl, and then placenta, ovarian wall swells, amniotic fluids, trimesters, oestrogen, fallopean tube, corpus luteum, gonadotropins... Oooooh! I see. Wait what the hell is this ? yuckk.
I understood quite few in that age, about the periodic hormonal cycles in women, menstruation, about the ovaries that alternately ovulate in women and the about 300 eggs that get down the tube out of the million or so that gets started when a baby girl is born. Now, I was mowed over by these facts that I thought the guy's flagellated sperm meets the girlfriend's ovum and TADA a baby is formed. Awesome. I was happy for 2 years when I was flouting my enlightenment.
(cut to the next 4-5 years)
What the hell is happening to me ? That girl looks good... wait a min, I should concentrate on what is at stake here. Maybe if I talk to her and sit next to her, maybe one of my sperms might just swim to her and I could be the father... better to stay away from her. But how come all others are talking and kissing without getting pregnant? The girls must be using contraceptives (you should realize that I was in 12th standard (12th grade) and thought all the girls who were talking+holding hands+sitting together+eating together with boys were taking contraceptives)
I did not read about this anywhere... what is going on? oh man! I need to find another book! I did not get a book, but what I got was a CD. My friends welcomed me to the world of yucky videos aka soft-porn movies... actually it was just "Titanic". Remember the scene is Titanic where they do something in a car and she suddenly slaps the windows and then the hand goes down? Oh! people have to do something THAT exciting ?? hmm I see. I guess it must be a lot of fun! So, holding hands and touching does not really transfer the contagious sperms... They actually DO something special, something real physical ! Maybe a french kiss really long and hard or something.
At this point, I was 17 and knew where the sperm was produced and the average count, and where the ovum resides and for how long, but just could not make the connection. Ignorance was then quickly vanquished with the help of some special friend of mine who happened to have some real porn, seeing which I promptly puked the first 4 times before accepting the fate that someday I would have to stand naked before a girl to have a little fun!
So you see, guys from Tamil Nadu did not have to hear this uncomfortable grossness from their visibly embarrassed father but have the opportunity to be driven by curiosity to their enlightenment in the safe and friendly environment.
posted by The Kid at 3:34 AM
8 Comments:
Very good post! Here is a related short story in tamil manamuthir kaalam.
that's amazing, you didn't know about 'it' until you were 17. And it's funny that you thought all the girl's were on contraceptives. I can't remember when i found out, i think i must have been very young because i feel like i've always known what happens! I guess it proves an interesting case study of the cultural differences and the sexual taboo between different countries!
-Amy
@visitor: thanks. Already read that one.
@amy: actually I might have exaggerated that one. I think I knew about it when I was 14 or 15 but definitely not before that... anyway 15 is still late right? that is the whole point.
Interesting post and very well written.Did you major in Biology?
@starry: yup. Biology in 11th and 12th standard.
You've enlightened me.Too late. my son is 27 and like other Tam boys he hopefully has learnt things by doing his own research.I wonder if it is different with other groups in India.
@hiphopgmom: the pleasure is mine.
JUST TOO GOOD.. I LIKE YOUR GUTS TO TALK ABT SEX. I THINK THATS THE NEED OF THE HOUR IN INDIA WHERE THERE IS AN EVER INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE AFFECTED BY AIDS.
just awesome post pratap!!!!!.. but i see you learnt all that when u were 14 and i learnt it when i was 13... the age when kids learnt abt this seems to be at a steady decreasing rate.....
after all,
LIFE IS A STD ;)
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