DO WE ALL HAVE OUR LOCKER ROOMS?
“You may give them
your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their
own thoughts,
You may house their
bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell
in the house of tomorrow
which you cannot
visit, not even in your dreams.”
-
Kahlil Gibran on
Children
When all this Boys’ and
Girls’ Locker-room controversy is raging outside, when
all and sundry are sitting on their judgement seats and handing
out their verdicts on the ‘guilty’… I start wondering if there were ‘locker
rooms’ while I was a young school boy… If dirty thoughts passed through my mind
and if I and some of my friends chatted our private stuff.
Horrible thoughts do pass through my mind even now… The locker room
is still there, very much there.
Am I alone here? Hope I am not…
None of the so-called ‘dirty thoughts’ come in a young one from
his parents and teachers. Mine did not come from my parents or teachers. So,
let’s stop blaming about upbringing of the child. The child is always as curious
and as adventurous as a child should be… What’s right and what is wrong – yes,
every child develops a fair sense of it through multiple disciplinary-sources.
Then, it learns to make choices… I learnt to make my own choices, just as you
did. My son learnt to make his choices on his own… So did all his friends.
So, today, when all of us are trying to pretend as though we
never had our own locker rooms, we should be worrying about our own
holier-than-thou attitude. Yes, the particular group of teenagers, apparently,
were discussing something extreme and dangerous. They need to be corrected… Not
punished and humiliated. Not made to think, that they have no right to make
amends and live in this society again.
The school subject, that tries to inculcate in us what is right
and what is wrong, is called the ‘Moral Science’. Frankly, how many of us
really liked this subject? And, how many of us picked it up (what is right and
what is wrong) from our moral-science classes?
My character is what I am in the dark! And, I have enough of
dark stuff in me. But, my dark stuff – the dirty and dangerous thoughts - will
always remain inside my locker room. I am sure so will be yours. But, if anyone
tells me, that he/she never had a locker room, and never has one now, then, this
will be my last Blog!
Seriously!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: alleksana
Video: Mike Youngquist
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