Case for the condom

The condom is the centre of controversy once again. And this time on the banks of the Narmada. While the entire row is over the dam on th...

The condom is the centre of controversy once again. And this time on the banks of the Narmada. While the entire row is over the dam on the river waters and the spotlight has been turned on the mobile republic called Arundhati Roy, who led the recent Narmada Yatra, the condom mysteriously seems to have found its way in.

Tired of the agitators, the administration there seems to have found what is wrong with these people from the big bad world who seem to be taking cudgels for the local tribals to be displaced by the dam. There has been quite a malign campaign on the used condoms found in the camps. Funnily, the agitators instead of saying, 8220;So what?8221;, are trading charges. The condoms, they say, belong to the policemen and women camping alongside.

Now it is quite unnecessary to go into whether the condoms were used by members of the establishment or members of the anti-establishment. What should be a matter of joy, considering all the health and family welfare department8217;s efforts in promoting the use ofthe rubber balloon, that some people are actually practicing safe sex. Considering there are not many who know what to do with it. A recent seminar on sexual health in the capital dwelt on the problem of rural Rajasthanis not knowing what to do with them.

Of course, since we are all getting eco-friendly, what is required perhaps is a campaign for proper disposal of these bits of rubber. There8217;s no point littering them about.

Somehow condoms and agitations have a habit of going hand in hand. In the early days of the students8217; agitation in Assam, I had my angry tea planter brother telling us that used condoms were being found all over the place.

His shocked chotta memsahib added: 8220;And do you know the rate of abortion has gone up!8221; Now either the planter or his wife had to be wrong. For if condoms were in rampant use, the cases of conception would be less. So there could not be a rise in the abortion rate. And if they were both right, then here was a case fit for the consumer protection cell. Was theresomething lacking in the production quality? Or was some vicious person there in the condom units punching holes? For that8217;s what was supposed to be one of the descriptions of the height8217; of frustration. The height series of jokes were quite popular in my school days.

But that was not the first time one heard of condoms. I remember my mother telling other women of the family when and how she got the first glimpse of French Leather8217;. That, I believe was the trade name in the thirties. She along with a married cousin were rummaging the bag of a Vilayat-returned male relative to look at the curiosities brought from across the seven seas.

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And she stumbled on this strange little thing. 8220;What is this?8221; The married cousin recoiled and shouted: 8220;Don8217;t touch it. Shut the bag.8221; Surprised, my mother did so. And after much coaxing, her cousin told her that it was a device meant to prevent unmarried girls from getting into trouble.

But from the thirsty thirties to the last year of what were called the naughtynineties, the condom continues to be associated with promiscuous sex and not safe sex. Watch a man who comes to take his supply of condoms at the chemist shop, meant in all probability for the holy wedlock. He would rather wait for all to clear out and then without looking the salesman in the eye, he will point to the fancy packets and disappear, as it were, into thin air. Such is the societal attitude to this medical miracle which can prevent so much: from an unwanted baby to the dreaded Aids.

But it has remained damned all through the century. Even when the issue is as faraway from it as the dam over the Narmada.