Harsh Vardhan

Michelle Obama rang me up at my New York hotel and we had a long chat over my concept of sex education without ‘vulgarisation’. She was quite impressed with my much-publicised views on the topic. Told me it was highly relevant to her and Barack because they had two daughters, the elder one almost ready for college. She wished for a long, personal chat with me at the White House but I had to fly back to India and if the government came to know that I had met the First Family before its scheduled meeting with Modiji in September, it could lead to protocol problems. 

Yet over the telephone we discussed many of these issues. When I told her that I had been health-cum-education minister in the Delhi government, she was quite impressed, adding I was qualified to be “morals minister” too. Yes, Michelle told me in confidence she had talked to her daughters about the facts of life but they seemed to know more than her on the topic. The elder daughter had taken part in a school project and completed an assignment which concluded that the original Kama Sutra was out of date because it dealt with only 69 positions. Doing the project, the daughter learnt there were 260 positions from her friends and sources. Anyway, I will submit my proposal to the PM on the need for a further visit to the US which will only cement Indo-US Sex Education relations. And if Sushma Swaraj is jealous, I can’t help it.

Still, I can’t understand this hullabaloo over my comments. I don’t want sex education to be banned but it must be taught without vulgarisation. The UPA sex education plan was nothing but culturally objectionable symbols which the young had adopted. The trousers are going down, blouses and cholis have no back (though that does save on cloth). In my sex education syllabus, sex will be well-clothed. No part of the human body will be visible, teachers will explain that ‘orgasm’ means an ‘organic evolution of well-clothed bodies and minds’. The Harsh Vardhan concept will be one of ‘mating of minds’ and if that did not enlighten sex, nothing else well.

My reforms in sex education while I was Delhi’s minister for education are still talked about. Only morons like novelist Chetan Bhagat made fun of it. It was better than his Three Idiots. I recommend he produce a sequel and call it ‘Four Idiots’ with himself being the fourth one! My words that ‘Condoms promised safe sex but the safest sex was through faithfulness to one’s partner’ will be proved right, even Bollywood will change and concentrate on making movies like Pati, Patni aur Patni. There’ll be no place for ‘Woh!’

The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 [AT] gmail [DOT] com