Coping with sleaze and a bolder GenX

Is it technology? More exposure on TV and Internet? Or just a new age of permissiveness?

Is it technology? More exposure on TV and Internet? Or just a new age of permissiveness whose time has come?

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The questions are many as debate rages over a sexually explicit MMS involving two Delhi high school students. The MMS involving two students of the elite Delhi Public School (DPS) in the capital's R.K. Puram area shocked educationists and parents. That the 2.37-minute sleaze footage soon found its way to countless mobiles, CDs that could be bought off the shelves and even porn sites came as a further shock, leading to considerable soul searching about what it implied.

Some argued morality, officials said it was not an isolated instance, parents complained of easy access to pornography. And doctors at abortion clinics in the city said it only conformed to a pattern of their patients getting younger.

"Almost 20 to 30 percent of the girls who walk into my clinic for abortions are unmarried, of which a majority are under 17. They mostly come with boys who claim to be their husbands, or with other friends," said Ranvir Solanki who runs the Solanki Medical Home in Dwarka in south Delhi.

He gave the example of a young girl who came to him saying she was a college student, which she clearly wasn't. "When I discussed her case with another doctor nearby we realised that she had already been there twice."

"And most youngsters seem to be aware of all the latest devices as well," he added, recounting how a young girl had walked in asking for Propofol, a new "wonder drug" that helps in abortion.

Solanki's assertions are borne out by another doctor who worked at Marie Stopes, a government supported hospital for abortions.

"As soon as they walk in, we doctors know. But there is nothing we can do about it. They dress up like adults, give fictitious names and addresses. They want the 'job' done fast, and are ready to shell out as much money as required."

Educationists and parents, who bear the onus, admit that they can't just blame technology or the times. What is important is instilling a sense of the right and the wrong in the child.

Said Sara George, principal of St Mary's School: "In today's world, parents have an increasing role to play. They should maintain close and friendly relationships with their children, so they feel free to open up to them."

Added Beena Varkey, a teacher at St Paul's School: "It is just not possible to control anything anymore. Technology is growing fast, and children are the first to learn anything new. And with all this influence of foreign TV channels, Internet and films, children today are mostly trying to ape youth in the west."

"What is required is possibly effective counselling, something on the lines of moral and sexual education," she said.

Reena Oberoi, a mother of two, in Delhi agreed that it was futile blaming developments in the tech world or influences like TV.

"I guess every generation of parents have had to deal with some kind of moral policing or the other. My parents may have had to do their share by banning Harold Robbins and Mills and Boons, and now I have to do it by placing child locks on TV channels and monitoring websites.

"That is not sufficient I know with newer means of communication coming out every other day. What is essential is for children to be made aware of what is right and wrong and the implications of any impulsive action."

The incident that sparked this intense debate hit the headlines last month though it occurred about two weeks earlier in the school. All students involved in the filming were suspended.

There have been reports that the girl involved has been shifted out of the country by her family, and the boy who was part of the under-17 Delhi state cricket team, opted out of the a north zone Vijay Merchant trophy match against Punjab, Nov 27, 28 and 29, complaining of diarrhoea.

But in a sense, they have become peripheral in the discussion of morality vs promiscuity, discipline vs liberal values, independence vs parental control that is the talking point in drawing rooms and classrooms all over.