The boy at the end of the hotline

A few words at a time, I heard an adolescent diffidently venture out of a strange, dark, hormonal world he dared not tell anyone about

It was an afternoon in January. I had taken an auto to reach a hard-to-reach school tucked inside Goregaon. Within, amidst footballers and children breaking for lunch, there was supposed to be an NGO's office. Here, I was to be interviewed by a camera crew for my recollections of the early beginnings of Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), India's first ever group of men committed to working with other men to prevent violence against women.

The NGO was young and the room was still emerging from its native chaos. On the desk was a telephone handset, still wrapped in its pristine plastic wrapping. I was told that the group planned to run a suicide prevention hotline.

Had the number been announced? I asked, a little concerned that no one seemed to be manning the hotline. Yes, I was told, but calls were not expected yet. Indians are sensitive, and would pick up a phone to talk about deep feelings only if there were truly no other recourse.

I waited patiently for the camera and lights to be set up.

And then the phone rang, the one still encased in plastic. I was nearest to it so I picked it up.

An adolescent voice at the other end, boyish in tone but with emerging bass notes, spoke after several seconds of silence.

His first words were, "Is this call being recorded?"

Madhesh (not his real name, of course) was calling in from a small town near Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. I don't know how he had learned of this hotline but something in his voice told me it was urgent. I have no experience in such counselling but I tried to listen as calmly and attentively as I could.
"Could you see my number when I called?" Madhesh asked.

"No," I replied.

"Are you alone?" he asked.

"Yes," I reassured him. "This call is completely confidential. We will not ask your name or any other details, and no notes will be taken as you speak."

There was a long silence. Then, in a much smaller voice, he spoke. "Sir, I think the devil has possessed my mind. I am filled with terrible thoughts all the time and I cannot control them."

Thus, a few words at a time, I heard an adolescent diffidently venture out of a strange, dark, hormonal world he dared not tell anyone about. Madhesh, only 13, had discovered masturbation - and was now terrified. He had heard it whispered in conversations that it was a disgusting and sinful action inspired by devils. That it would make him impotent.

That his parents would take him to the Balaji Temple in Mehndipur, Rajasthan, to be exorcised if they ever found out. He was petrified that one of these days, his mother would discover his stained bedsheets.

"Is it - a very bad thing, sir?" he asked, voice shaking.

It took me a patient hour to explain to Madhesh that masturbation was completely normal and harmless. That his ears would not fall off. That he was not a pervert or possessed by evil spirits. Perhaps my sheer repetition finally convinced him. He let out a deep breath and, emboldened now, asked his second question. "Sir - please tell me - how should
one do it?"

For the next 30 minutes, with the film unit listening, I gave a lonely boy far away his first introduction to Masturbation 101. And wondered about a country where a lonely boy must call an anonymous hotline hundreds of miles away to get basic information about his body.

The average Indian adolescent in shining India, home to the erotic temples of Khajuraho, is still brought up chaste and uninformed - sex is shameful, women are not supposed to have desires, and the patriarchy deems it inappropriate for a man to admit either sexual need or ignorance. Modestly dressed women who must return home well before sundown are told of the terrible things that could happen to them after dark.

Comprehensive Sexual Education is now national policy; we may trust that appropriate biological facts will be revealed in an appropriately moral way in due course. But the primitive attitudes come not from text books but from parents, ministers, teachers and gurus. In emergent India, Indians do not have sex, we are clean as whistles and irreproachable and morally incandescent.

A part of me could not help but wonder when there would be a hotline equipped to address a very different question - which, too, no one asks.

"Sir - my mind is filled with terrible thoughts about Muslims. Everyone says they are evil. My parents say the world would be better without them. But, sir . . . can you tell me the facts? Are there no good Muslims? And are they no evil Hindus? Why does everyone hate each other so much?"

Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at cygopi@gmail.com Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com

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