Teen girls making a mistake and the way Indian society reacts

Finally watched the much hailed film Appa - really a fantastic movie on how to bring up children so that they will grow up to be good citizens with good social skills rather than just educated and no 1 in studies. Kudos to director Samuthrakanni for this sequel to Saatai.

The other day, Anti Senju Uderan Kes page uploaded a video which shows 2 girls who can’t be more than 13 dancing and singing a vulgar song. The caption given was ‘Future Kutthu Vilakku’ (future homely girl). As a community, how we reacted? We denounced the girls in vulgar words. Ok, now if the girls used vulgar words, it’s wrong but if you use vulgar words to admonish them, it’s ok? As adults, if you yourself is like this, how can we blame our kids?

One more thing, what’s with the snarky tagline ‘future kutthu vilakku’? If a boy was drinking or swearing, you will come to the conclusion that he will amount to a panja paradesi (useless fellow) in future? My schoolmate, a girl with rowdy like tendency is now a CA - chartered accountant. I was a prefect and she was always flouting the school rules yet, she is in a good position now. Anything could have happened in her life - she might have made the decision to make the best of her life or someone helped her realize her potential. Point is, how one is as a child or teen doesn’t determine how he/she will end up in future and being kutthu vilakku definitely is not the ambitions of girls. With the right guidance and encouragement, children and teens will flourish. You people need to watch Boys, Appa, She’s Too Young, Mom At Sixteen, Taare Zameen Par, Saatai, Amma Kanakku, Pasanga, The Triumph, a dozen times.

Look, abusing those girls might give you the feeling you fulfilled your social responsibility and make you feel so good. But in reality, what you did didn’t help in any way. In fact, it only worsened the situation. What the girls need is not admonish but attention - positive and mature attention, not negative and profane attention. The girls are merely kids and did this in arva kolaru. That’s what kids do. They make mistakes out of curiosity, nothing else. Our job is to channel this curiosity in the right way.

How many Indian parents take their kids to book, science and tech fairs as opposed to Kollywood concerts? How many Indian parents watch Nat Geo, Discovery, History channels as opposed to Sun TV mega serials? How many Indian parents read with their children? How many Indian parents get to know their kids’ activities and Internet browsing history? How many Indian parents impart the right knowledge about sex to their children? Very scant. These are our children - telling that pinjiliyeh venbirichinge, visham kudichi settere sollu (fucked up so young, ask them to drink poison and die) reflects social responsibility and mature dealing with wayward children?

When Tamil school kids win international yoga and invention competitions we all laud them and want to associate ourselves with them. When other kids go off the right way, koodi kaari thuperethu (gang up and spit). Both has only 2 role playing factors - curiosity and environment which are both in the hands of the adults who are the keepers of these kids. Namma pasangala naamale saaghe sollalama? Koleya pannirchunga? (How can we ask the kids of our community to go die? Did they commit murder?) You people are not as vitriolic to gangster machas who do crime time even but to these girls, kaluvi kaluvi ootheringale, ippo unga kutram teriyutha? (you upbraid these girls, can you see your faults now?)