Film-maker, actress and human rights supporter Suhasini in Chennai is trying; she is clear that one half of human experience need not be off limits to the other half of the population. She intends succeeding despite the contrary messages from the relatives and friends around her son. Says she, ‘It has been very important for me as a mother to not mystify my son simply because of his gender. I have found it difficult but imperative that I explain to my son that he see his “maleness” as a complete paradigm, inclusive of humanity and femininity. But I find my task made all that more difficult by relatives and friends who insist on feeding the “male” element in my son instead of addressing him as a child.’

Needed in India, urgently, a million more mothers like Suhasini.

Otherwise the ‘male’ will keep doing his thing. The ‘male’ who refers to his girlfriend as ‘baby’, when he is particularly frisky he refers to her vagina as ‘pussy’, he buys her teddy bears and likes to look at pictures of her in frilly knickers. And oh, how he trips on Britney Spears as she wears school-girlish clothing but knots it below her breasts, her hair is tied girlie-like but her tongue curls right from under as she apologetically croons-moans, ‘Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know.’ Cold, calculating Britney Spears—no surprise that her pre-pregnancy interview is all about ‘still being a virgin’—continuously feeding the ultimate warped male fantasy of fucking a child.

Don’t believe it? Surf the internet, there are sexualized Bambis here with honey trap-like vaginas and other Walt Disney creations with huge digital penises. And the paedophiles having the time of their lives with the digitally altered bodies of children, specially little boys.

Later in this book is information on how India—specifically Goa, Mumbaii and Kovalam in Kerala—are turning into the international paedophile’s delight. There are also details on children running away from their own homes in which they are being sexually assaulted. Some of these are being subsequently kidnapped from the strange streets they find themselves on and whisked away into brothels for little boys and girls: in India and abroad.

A missing child. From a ‘good’ home, a ‘fine’ family. No apparent reason to run away.

But these stories can be as much about children running away as grown-ups not looking and seeing, about adults who prefer to sugar-coat rather than confront reality.

These are not ‘nice’ things to say, I suppose. Perhaps this will be the reason this book will be badly received by those very parents who need to know such things. I would worry about this if I was not a journalist who wants, and chooses, to stand by the country’s future generations. We can all sense this—assuming politics, and parents, do not ruin it—something special is on the brink for India and its future citizens. We are at its cusp now, where Generation Next—our kids—are talking about real freedom, the kind that comes from within, and self-determination; all of which is energising for India. Child Sexual Abuse represses children; the repression of children is unlikely to create a flourishing society, economically, emotionally, equally or spiritually. This is my attempt at protecting the emergence of another wounded generation.