'Knowing your body'

“In the beginning

it is always dark.

The mind thinks

(and lead us to believe)

that this darkness is forever

But the body can feel the light;

and as soon as it’s allowed,

will, always grow toward it”

The body is one’s best friend only when we know our body well, be it physically, emotionally or psychologically. Whenever there is a talk about physical development of human body, adolescence is the word that strikes my mind first as it represents one of the critical transitions in the life span and is characterized by a tremendous pace in growth and change in terms of body which can be confusing, discomforting and can raise lot of questions. That’s why the second day of Sahas’s intervention with adolescents of Barola community was about “Knowing our body”

I was anxious, curious and hopeful at the same time as this workshop was unique in its own way- be it design or the implementation part of it- for the first we were to sit in the circle with both adolescent boys and girls and talk about the changes that their body is going through and development of the sexual organs. After a fun energizer and revision of first workshop, the participants were divided into 3 different groups and were asked to share on “When did you come to know for the first time that you are a boy or a girl?” this seemingly easy question made them think and come up with answers that surprised me. A boy shared, "I used to wear girl’s clothes till I started going to school. I continued wearing girl's clothes till I was 7 years then, my mother asked me not to wear when I started going to school." Another girl after lot of hesitation shared, “I was 12 years old when I got periods that time my mother told me that I am girl. After that my life changed, all my freedom was snatched from me.”

In the next session, most of the participants chose eyes and hairs as the body part they liked most, on the contrary few girls chose vagina as the part they disliked the most, reason being it is dirty and it makes them feel bad about themselves.

Following this, the participants were divided into 2 single sex groups and were invited to draw body map marking the various body parts and the changes that happen as they are growing up. It all began with a chaos as to who will volunteer for body map, who will draw the map, who will mark the changes etc. As I sat with boys group, I saw them making all the body parts except their sexual organ- i tried hinting to which one of them responded and what followed next was a laughter riot, few guys ran here and there, few hide their face in shame. It took me a while to make them understand and that just broke the ice. They discussed the various questions and prepared the presentation around what are good and bad things about growing up physically. On the other side, girls were quite quick and suave with the drawing body map; they seemed comfortable about sharing different aspects about growing up in their small group.

I was pained to hear when a 12 year old girl shared, “Because I'm growing up now; there are restrictions on what clothes I can wear. I'm not allowed to go out alone anywhere. Even, if I'm going out with my brother; people look down upon me with suspicion”. This made me wonder about the kind of society we live in where a 12 year old think that growing up as a girl takes away the freedom? How can her developing body be a reason for taking away happiness from her? 

I never thought that body mapping would work so wonderfully with adolescents – they were opening up, boys who were shy, running away at the mention of penis could share, “When we are growing up; the things we dislike are growing moustache, hairs in the armpit, growing chest, pimples, penis hairs, talking about penis is considered shameful” With the help of a video (courtesy: Menstrupedia) and power point presentation, female and male sexual organs, their importance, the major difference between male and female is their sexual organs and puberty in terms of body changes were explained.  The session became very intense as now there were no giggling, no running away, no chit chats- all eyes were focused on the presentation. Whoops! I was exhausted too. After a short break, the participants were again divided into 4 groups and were given different situations around growing up and how people around us be it friends, parents, neighbors, teachers and others react to it. The participants could actually relate to the situations given to them, they discussed among themselves and also shared how this has happened to them as well. "People also call me "gorilla" and I dislike that when people tease me because of my color", shared a participant.

Another conversation that left me amazed was when a boy shared, “this story looks so similar to me. My friends also tease me that I have girl’s voice and I am very thin like stick. But I feel there is nothing wrong with me.” 

“No, your voice is perfectly fine. You are growing up, you might have more heavy voice in coming years and we just learnt that children hit puberty at different age from 10-15 years so it’s okay, your body will grow with age. This is absolutely normal”, shared another participant.I was at peace; we had moved a step ahead in our journey with adolescents engaging them around physical, psychological and emotional changes that happen during puberty, which is not even taught in schools, parents and teachers shy away from discussing it leaving adolescents with unanswered queries and making them vulnerable .

“Didi, I have a question, will you answer it?” I was lying down with my eyes closed when this cute voice hit my ear drums. With my eyes half opened, slowly I said, “Yes, I will.”

“We know who is a boy and who is a girl, then who is a Hizra? Can you tell us?” My face was lit with a wide smile, “Yes, I will definitely”