Sunday, May 08, 2005

What do you mean 'right to play'?!?!?!

A Figment of Fiction In Reality "Permanent" Mistake: What?!?! Right to play??? Never heard of that one before, dude! "Persona" Non Grata: I am talking about the right of the child to play Permanent Mistake: Wonder who'd have thought of granting such rights to children Persona Non Grata: Well, its a 'right'... nobody needs to grant it... the UN has just acknowledged it and framed it as one in its Convention on the Rights of the Child. And India has accepted it! Permanent Mistake: Why would India accept such fantasies propounded by the western world through the UN? Persona Non Grata: Well, because they don't send their children to work, especially the girl children, and have these unreasonable laws which say you cannot hit a child, marry one when she's 12 years old, or even enagage them to do their bit as soldiers and generally manipulate them during war or civil strife. They have no idea... no idea of the sophistication that it takes to achieve our excellence... Take our doctors for example, you would have heard of the pharmacy and pharma guys doing great business coz of them. Have you heard of Mithaiwalas doing a roaring business? At the end of an Ultrasound, they eat Burfi to convey to the parents if it is a boy; and eat Gulab Jamoon if it is a girl. So much for our PNDT Act (Pre-Natal Diagnostics Test Act), female foeticide and infanticide galore... Permanent Mistake: So??? Persona Non Grata: So, the convention classifies all these children as children-living-in-difficult-circumstances. You will find that quite a few of the 54 rights of the child as propounded by the UN convention are absent in the case of these kids. Permanent Mistake: Then why r u talking about only one out of the 54 rights of the child? Persona Non Grata: Coz I find there's a huge space and need to address all their rights leveraging upon the oft neglected right of the cihld to play, relax and engage in recreation (Article 31) that has a significant impact on the child's development. And do that the sustainable way, facilitate ownership of the process by the community. Permanent Mistake: Hmm... some interesting passtime you have there... what do you do for a living? Persona Non Grata: That... just that! Permanent Mistake: Dude, ppl don't exactly fancy such idealistic notions of eeking out a living... its usually ppl who couldn't find anything else to do for their bread who are into such stuff... Persona Non Grata: How Mistaken can you be?! Permanent Mistake: Hey, wait a minute... that's my middle name... Persona Non Grata: Perhaps, I didn't introduce myself... I am Persona Non Grata... I'm seduced by your ignorance... will you be MY Permanent Mistake?! ;) I wanna marry you! I see exciting times ahead... Permanent Mistake is a character who always gets things wrong, or rather, has the ability to interpret and understand things slightly different from what was intended. Persona Non Grata is a non-conformist and therefore sidelined by society. The need for two people from different backgrounds and orientations to come together to learn different things from each other and thereby inducing Change is implied in Persona Non Grata prosing to marry Permanent Mistake.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

at last!!! god this is more difficult than i thought... as last this looks fine.

Sindhuja Parthasarathy said...

made a LOT of sense!And no,no sarcasm intended :)

Oh,lavanya's afforts go waste...u marrying some permanent waste ;)

Unknown said...

no not wasted at all samudraa... :) my efforts were in helping ram organize his blog... and that's that!

Ramm said...

The marriage is metaphor for two differing perspectives coming together to achieve change...

Sindhuja Parthasarathy said...

lol....i must have been in the MOST DUMBEST form when i read it yday ;)

erratica said...

lol..ending was real cool...infact the whole post was cool :)

che sara sara said...

me have to learn a lot...me an infant in front of you...

Anonymous said...

cool indeed. I like the sophistication behind your post.

and I hate characters who use the word sustainable. NOTHING is this world is sustainable.

There is only discovery. And this is no game.

you get ***** out of 5.

Ramm said...

Hi Fadereu! Thank you. Would love to dispute ur take on 'sustainability' but not able to get to ur blog... lol... What does Fadereu mean?