WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MAN
S everal years ago, when I was barely a few years into teaching, I was teaching a group of final-year B.Com students in the residence of one of those students. All boys were smart and fun-loving and they hailed from affluent Punjabi/Sindhi families. I was yet to become acquainted to the life-styles, culture, language and daily vocabulary… the ethos and even the routine slang that young boys – if not girls – of various communities in Mumbai used. I was a young man in mid twenties and the boys in this particular group, probably, were a couple of years younger than me. So, while teaching them, the boys would use a lot of colourful slang and swear words. The fact that I was young and open made it easy for them to take liberty, often. One night, when the young man, in whose house I was teaching, used a swear word (not referring to me, of course). I was in a foul mood, that night and I did not approve the boy’s reference to one’s sister in that swear world… “Do you know you ha...