CLEAN-UP THE TATTOOS FROM YOUR MIND






Pic.: Ruma Chatterjee
I had a good friend, by the name Paul, when I was in college, in Mangalore. He lived quite far from the college, in an interior village.

Paul loved the typical tailor-made polyester shirts and terry-wool pants and would wear them impeccably ironed. Some of his young cousins, who lived in Bandra, here in Bombay, would come down to the village during summer. They wore their crumpled tees and torn, stone-washed denims... and, yes, for days, they wore the same stuff!

Now, our poor Paul had some tough time at home... His elderly grandma would give him an earful, everyday, as he spent a good deal of time ironing out his clothes: “Look at these Bombay kids... They have plenty of money; but they don’t show-off like you do... So humble and simple they are, that they are able to survive, for days, on those torn and crumpled clothes. Learn from them... You need your expensive clothes, and you need them crisply ironed... Don’t you?”

The next day, in our college canteen, Paul would recount to us, his village friends, his grandma’s logic... and taunt us as to why we all had to learn something simple and important from the Bombay boys!

 “How innocent my grandma is!” Paul would laugh it out, “Our village is her world!”

When you are innocent, you are beautiful. Paul’s grandma was innocent... So, we all considered her as a beautiful person...

But, when you are ‘ignorant’, you are ugly!

During our PD sessions, for group discussions and debates, we, often, give our young-guns topics such as – smoking and drinking, particularly by girls, doing drugs and hookah, homosexuality and live-in relationship... We give them topics such as abortion and rapes... What they have in their mind on revealing clothes and flaunting their tattoos... Yes, we encourage them to open the widows of their mind and let some fresh air come in... That’s the time, we, also, realize how ‘informed’ our young-kids really are... Most of them know a lot about those things, and they, also, have strong views about them...

Is smoking a health issue or is it a moral issue?

If your daughter likes to go around in skimpy shorts, or your son in his tattoos, will you brand them as punks?

If you wake up, one day, to discover that your son has homosexual traits or daughter is into a live-in relationship, will you bring your house-roof down or go into a hiding?

If at all the mind’s window has to be opened, it is that of parents, teachers and preachers, who in the name of values, cultures, morals, education and religion, do not allow our little and young kids to express their minds out... Most of us are so particular about what they should wear and what they should not, that we, completely, forget to teach them – yes, by our own example – what kind of mind they should wear or they shouldn’t...

Yesterday, Maclean, my 24-year-old nephew, who sails all around the world, had shared this FB post:


“Sometimes, some of the nicest people you meet
are covered in tattoos;
And, sometimes, the most judgmental people you meet
go to church on Sundays.”

Earldibbles Jr

Though, to wear an open mind, we do not have to sail around the world, there is a world of truth in what my young nephew wears in his mind...

Tomorrow will be Sunday. I have a job to decide: Whether I should clean-up the tattoos from my body or to clean-up the tattoos from my mind!


GERALD D’CUNHA

Comments

Reeba Nair said…
Very thought-provoking article.
- Reeba Nair
July 26, 2014 at 4:53 PM
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