The Bird And The Bee

Date: July 2005.
Setting: Breakfast table in the Mumbai flat.
Occupants: Mom, dad, grand mom and I.

"So last night i was out with my friends, Charging Bear, Handy man, Mr. Puri Bail, and Dhokla boy and we were talking about this very weird topic which Charging Bear initiated", I said as I gulped down my coffee.

"What was this discussion about?", asked my mom.

"Well Charging Bear generally asked us a question, no rather he gave us a situation and asked us what we would do if we were in this particular situation. Situation is, you are hungry for the past 3-4 days and there is no one there to give you any food (hypothetically). You are living alone with your pet, a dog and you have heard dog meat tastes great (again hypothetically). What will you do?". For the sake of this post, I won't go in to the details of that discussion coz that is not what this post is about. But essentially I went over this entire discussion with my parents and unfortunately since my grand mom happened to be there, she had to be a silent spectator. She was probably thinking that me and my friends need psychiatric help for even discussing things such as these. Well fast forward. Breakfast over, I cleared the table (yes that was my responsibility in the house) and we sat in the living room.

"What is your view of pre-marital sex?", asked my mom. My grand mom cringed in her sofa, probably wondering why she had to hear this conversation. I was like, damn did they find anything they were not supposed to?? No, no that's not possible. Relief.... "Well, if the guy and girl (I didn't want to scandalize my parents with a discussion about homosexuality, so I stuck to guy and girl...yes I am very much straight thank you) are both willing, are aware of the possible consequences and are willing to take the necessary precautions and safe measures, then I don't see why anyone else should have a problem with it". "So you're okay with it", said my mom. "Well yea, I mean like I said, if the couple (notice this time I said couple not girl or guy) is mutually okay with it and are taking the precautions, I am ok with it." My grand mom began to shift in her sofa and started reading her newspaper loudly (it's a very irritating habit, I mean you want to read something read quietly na, why do we have to hear what you are reading?). My mom continued the discussion and after 10 mins my grand mom exploded, " do we have to have this conversation?". My parents and me were like, " well clearly you don't!" And then we got the entire bhashan about, "We are Indians, we don't discuss these things (she didn't want to use the word sex) in family. This is not our culture, only the Westerners do all this and they are spoiling everything......blah blah blah". You get the point na...the usual grand mom discussion.

And that's when I thought, why do we as a nation get so uncomfortable talking about sex?? I mean it's clear that it's happening everywhere. We happen to have the second largest population in the world, clearly that is not coincidence is it??? Definitely a lot of people in this country are having sex, probably more than they should be, but no one's willing to talk about it. In so many schools there is still no one who is willing to talk about sex education. Why go anywhere else, in my school we didn't have a sex ed class. Either we have teachers who are not willing to talk about it in school with students or there are parents who don't want teachers to teach their children about sex ed. Why are we in denial??? Why is it embarrassing to talk about sex and why does it make people cringe when someone decides to have a discussion about sex??

Very often we hear older people (people who are a generation or two older than me) say, "Oh today's generation is very promiscuous, we have such a population problem and these youngsters all just talk abt having sex". Ok before we jump to conclusions, the reason this country has a population problem is because I have thirteen first cousins once removed and fifteen great uncles....so it is not my generation, it was your generation that was ' having a lot of sex thank you'.

It's high time that we come out of our pretences and accept that sex has been 'going on' since a zillion years and it will continue for a zillion more years. Instead of being in denial we should come out in the open and educate people about it. STD's are spreading world over and by just being quiet about it, b'coz it is not a part of our culture is no excuse. The time has come that we as responsible citizens decide to take the right actions by educating the youth about safe sex, or about the 'birds and the bees' as some ppl call it.

On a side note, whoever came up with the term 'The birds and the bees'. I mean hello, what is the correlation?? I was watching stand up comedy one day and I hear Vir Das (if you haven't heard him, do it now) say the same thing, "Whoever came up with this term, the birds and the bees???," I wonder if it was the Americans?? (my white friends forgive me) But really birds and the bees??? I mean I would pay money to watch a bird and a bee go at it!!! (No, no seriously I am not in to any kinky shit, but man birds and bees is just too much to fathom!)