Time for parents to wake up

PATNA: It was perhaps the most embarrassing moment in my life ... my son, all of ten years, put my mental faculties on the high alert when he told me the other day, "papa, school mein ek bahut gandi baat batayee gayee hai." How come? I wondered. After all, I had put him in one of the best schools in Patna. But problem was, this Class V student was not ready to share details with his father."It's about an MMS case ... In any case, you must be knowing," the child said as I anxiously persuaded him to speak out, worried if he has already known about the birds and the bees and, if yes, as exactly what did he perceive sex. As I nagged him for almost the entire day, he agreed to oblige me. A Delhi school boy had filmed a girl classmate with a mobile camera and circulated the picture among his friends, he said. I knew he was acting smart, giving me censored version. I asked what's wrong in that. I won't mind if somebody takes your photograph and circulates it. Out of sheer irritation caused by my persistence, he overcame his shyness, almost spontaneously. "This was not a simple photograph of hers but bahut ganda photo tha", he shot back at me. "That's why my teacher today warned me not to carry mobile phones and not to do anything wrong and ganda. She also told me that both the students were expelled from the school," he further informed me. Thank god! A small assembly of Class V and VI students of his school was told about Delhi's MMS scandal in brief by a teacher. Besides warning the children against having mobile phones and indulging in obscene acts, the teacher also cautioned them against unnecessarily talking about the incident with anyone and everyone. They were allowed to discuss it with their parents, though. Yet, my son, so small he is, was too embarrassed to tell me. But, alas! As my son opened up, I came to know he knew about the incident much before the teacher told him. This despite the fact that he is not an avid reader of newspapers though he does pore over TV listings. Nor does he watch anything except cartoon serials on TV. His classmates with whom he shares seats in the school bus were to "blame" or "credited" for my son's enlightenment. "But now onwards I will go through the daily headlines in newspapers and TV lest I be dubbed a dumb in my school," my son told me. I nodded. Let him be informed, properly.