May God bless you with a son

[navingulia]

Today, i was teaching english grammer at the govt girls school and had a class full of 8th std girls in front of me
when i came across a sentence given as an example in types of sentences. The sentence was:-
May god bless you with a son!
Since I had to translate it into hindi for them i did (bhagwan kare aap ke ghar beta paida ho) and i felt horrible having to read it to a girls class. i could see a distinct change in emotions on all their faces as i translated it.
i couldnot say anything, i didnt know what to say.
(it is ncert book of grammer for 8th std)

[sidchhikara]

Today, i was teaching english grammer at the govt girls school and had a class full of 8th std girls in front of me
when i came across a sentence given as an example in types of sentences. The sentence was:-
May god bless you with a son!
Since I had to translate it into hindi for them i did (bhagwan kare aap ke ghar beta paida ho) and i felt horrible having to read it to a girls class. i could see a distinct change in emotions on all their faces as i translated it.
i couldnot say anything, i didnt know what to say.
(it is ncert book of grammer for 8th std)
Navin bhai - I think you should have told them whats written is wrong, because it is - then you could tell those girls that because of whats written, they should feel lucky that they somehow missed the female feticide bus.

[poonam]

Today, i was teaching english grammer at the govt girls school and had a class full of 8th std girls in front of me
when i came across a sentence given as an example in types of sentences. The sentence was:-
May god bless you with a son!



If I were you I would have translated " Bhagwan kare aapke ghar beti paida ho".......:)

[raj_rathee]

Today, i was teaching english grammer at the govt girls school and had a class full of 8th std girls in front of me
when i came across a sentence given as an example in types of sentences. The sentence was:-
May god bless you with a son!
Since I had to translate it into hindi for them i did (bhagwan kare aap ke ghar beta paida ho) and i felt horrible having to read it to a girls class. i could see a distinct change in emotions on all their faces as i translated it.
i couldnot say anything, i didnt know what to say.
(it is ncert book of grammer for 8th std)

You missed an opportunity here.

I think it would have been quite appropriate to make the young girls
understand that such thought process is really the result of diseased minds.
Maybe some historical backgorund could be provided, and then you could've
expained why such things are not appropriate in this day and age.
Those girls need to understand that they need to read with a critical mind.
Everything that they see or hear or read (even in state approved books)
is not correct or justifiable.

In general it is quite shocking to see this thought process still
nauseatingly prevalent in India, and that too amongst pretty educated
people. It is disheartening and sickening.

In any case, removal of such statements in school books can certainly be
a cause worth fighting for. If this is Haryana Board, how about
get Rajendra Kalkunde Chacha/Deepender to step up to do something about
it...I just saw the NCERT part...well Deepender can take this up, I am sure.

[kabir]

It's shocking to say the least.

These politicians/policymakers/NCERT wallahs have all the time on earth to make changes in history books and then revert them, knowing well that it would hardly have a bearing on our present. Whereas, this kind of blunders are overlooked or go unnoticed, all beacuse there's no political brownie point to score!

Naveen ji, could you specifically tell me where I can find that (page no. and stuff). I happen to have some friends in newspapers. Lemme see what can be done -- although I m not too upbeat about that. Media, at times, acts like a whore. Only saleable stuff gets column-inches/air time.

[navingulia]

I was taken by surprise and wasnt preared for it.
A part of my mind was saying i should explain it, another was saying that if i rubbish their own text book, they would lose respect for their text-book, something which wont be right. So, i couldnot decide what to do instantly.

I dont know, some people maynot take it as some big issue but to me it was like telling them that they have a lesser reason to be alive. And their expression on hearing it is stuck in my mind.

It is in the very first chapter of grammer book for class 8th. 'Sentences'. Page 2. It is given as an example sentence.
Definitely if Bhai Deepeder can look into it, it would be great. We cant keep teaching our girl children that 'May God bless you with a son!' is an example of blessing.

[spdeshwal]

Navin bhai

It is really shocking but not unusual.

You could at least ask the girls to strike off the sentence or repace the word boy with a girl.

I am going to take up this issue with Dr. Raghbir Kadian( Speaker Haryana Assembly) when i see him this evening and would let the members know about his reaction

Keep the fight on!


Sateypal

[satyeshwar]

I totally agree... I would have done the same! :p

If I were you I would have translated " Bhagwan kare aapke ghar beti paida ho".......:)

[ravinderdahiya]

I was taken by surprise and wasnt preared for it.
A part of my mind was saying i should explain it, another was saying that if i rubbish their own text book, they would lose respect for their text-book, something which wont be right. So, i couldnot decide what to do instantly.

I dont know, some people maynot take it as some big issue but to me it was like telling them that they have a lesser reason to be alive. And their expression on hearing it is stuck in my mind.

It is in the very first chapter of grammer book for class 8th. 'Sentences'. Page 2. It is given as an example sentence.
Definitely if Bhai Deepeder can look into it, it would be great. We cant keep teaching our girl children that 'May God bless you with a son!' is an example of blessing.

Bhai saab, if it was a example sentence then you may have told that "similarly if we want to say that aapkay ghar beti paida ho we will translate it as "May God bless you with a daughter".
I believe saying both sentences would have better conveyed the message of gender equality at that point of time.

But I am not of the opinion that you should have translated to them wrongly because :
1. As a teacher nobody should teach something wrong knowingly.
2. I may be wrong but it may seem like reverse discrimination.

[neels]

Bhai saab, if it was a example sentence then you may have told that "similarly if we want to say that aapkay ghar beti paida ho we will translate it as "May God bless you with a daughter".
I believe saying both sentences would have better conveyed the message of gender equality at that point of time.

But I am not of the opinion that you should have translated to them wrongly because :
1. As a teacher nobody should teach something wrong knowingly.
2. I may be wrong but it may seem like reverse discrimination.


BEST REPLY !!!

[rameshlakra]

I think it was just an example, and if u give too much importance to it, infront of school girls, they become consious of this as "discrimation". How i see this is that it was just an example. It could have been "may god bless u with a girl". Then we would have said discrimination against boys and a class of boy would have felt bad.
Sometime, with all the good intention, we tend to overdo things and get too much on right side or left side. To me it was just an example and one can't raise a "fatwa" to NCERT writers. It had to be this way or that way and poor writer could'nt have taken a middle path.

[shobhitdeshwal]

If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realise that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunning and distorting the mind of the young in what is called "Education".

This is what has happened here.... Young minds are distorted to believe the faith, of mail dominated society.

Male superiority in former days was easily demonstrated, because if a woman questioned her husband's he could beat her. From superiority in this respect others were thought to follow. Men were more reasonable than women, more inventive, less swayed by emotions, and so on. Anatomists, until the women had the vote, developed a number of ingenious arguments from the study of the brain to show that men's intellectual capacities must be greater than women's. Each of these arguments in turn was proved to be fallacious, but it always gave place to another from which the same conclusion would follow. It used to be held that male foetus acquires a soul after six weeks, but the female only after three months. This opinion also has been abandoned since women have had the vote. Thomas Aquinas states parenthetically, as something entirely obvious, that men are more rational than women. For my part I see no evidence of it.

What Navin bhai has faced in a grade VIII book, is a clear indication that the belief is based on a FAITH and we try to infect the young in EDUCATION... We need to change the Belief... We need to base it at reason, so as to even change it if argument goes against us.

Cheers!!

Shobhit Deshwal.

[navingulia]

Bhai Ramesh, it could have been 'May God bless you with a healthy child!'
These girls hear these emotions every day in their famlies, neighbourhood, village and society and now their book says same. It did have a strong impact on them because the class became too quiet all of a sudden, every one's head was down with that 'being looked down upon' feeling.
We all are aware how fiercely a boy child is desired and when some one gets one, he is pampered beyond resources. The girl child is given maximum household work while the boys do mischief in the streets coming home only to have a nutrtious food of ghee doodh while the girl child gets leftovers.

It wouldnt have mattered if our society treated boys and girls as equal BUT in a society severly biased against girl child, such a sentence that too in a text book carries a strong message.

I in that fraction just tried to treat it as normal because children have lot of respect for their textbooks and negating instantly didnt appear a good idea.
However, I would definitely speak to the girls one day about motivation citing examples of girl achievers kalpana chawala, bichindri pal, santosh yadav, indira nooyi, pt usha and so on, also giving them lot of carrier options they dont know.

This example needs to be immediately ammended.
I said it may appear trivial to a large number but telling a girl child that she has a lesser right to live is something the village society is doing everyday. We shouldnot add to it by having such sentences in text books.

[navingulia]

Neelam Ji, and Bhai Ravinder
your suggestion is good and an easy way to tackle it, had i been prepared for such a sentence to come i might ve responded same. I didnot expect such a sentence i have to admit.
'aapke ghar beti paida ho' is considered a curse in villages given to enemies and rivals, even the girls know that. They arent aware what they can do with their life beside getting married. I will give them a talk about carrier options and achievers. But nothing like if some girl achievers themselves could talk/visit.
We need to make them discover faith in themselves.
We all have been kids and know how it feels when you are told that you are inferior to another child repeatedly.

[rameshlakra]

Bhai Ramesh, it could have been 'May God bless you with a healthy child!'
These girls hear these emotions every day in their famlies, neighbourhood, village and society and now their book says same. It did have a strong impact on them because the class became too quiet all of a sudden, every one's head was down with that 'being looked down upon' feeling.
We all are aware how fiercely a boy child is desired and when some one gets one, he is pampered beyond resources. The girl child is given maximum household work while the boys do mischief in the streets coming home only to have a nutrtious food of ghee doodh while the girl child gets leftovers.

It wouldnt have mattered if our society treated boys and girls as equal BUT in a society severly biased against girl child, such a sentence that too in a text book carries a strong message.

I in that fraction just tried to treat it as normal because children have lot of respect for their textbooks and negating instantly didnt appear a good idea.
However, I would definitely speak to the girls one day about motivation citing examples of girl achievers kalpana chawala, bichindri pal, santosh yadav, indira nooyi, pt usha and so on, also giving them lot of carrier options they dont know.

This example needs to be immediately ammended.
I said it may appear trivial to a large number but telling a girl child that she has a lesser right to live is something the village society is doing everyday. We shouldnot add to it by having such sentences in text books.


Point well taken. It needs to be taken seriously.

regards

[sidchhikara]

I was taken by surprise and wasnt preared for it.
A part of my mind was saying i should explain it, another was saying that if i rubbish their own text book, they would lose respect for their text-book, something which wont be right. So, i couldnot decide what to do instantly.

I dont know, some people maynot take it as some big issue but to me it was like telling them that they have a lesser reason to be alive. And their expression on hearing it is stuck in my mind.

It is in the very first chapter of grammer book for class 8th. 'Sentences'. Page 2. It is given as an example sentence.
Definitely if Bhai Deepeder can look into it, it would be great. We cant keep teaching our girl children that 'May God bless you with a son!' is an example of blessing.
Navin Bhai.... I think they should loose respect for that text book - so that they grow up questioning things. If the government is lazy enough not to change such things in their textbook - then why should anybody respect that textbook.

[raj_rathee]

Navin bhai

It is really shocking but not unusual.

You could at least ask the girls to strike off the sentence or repace the word boy with a girl.

I am going to take up this issue with Dr. Raghbir Kadian( Speaker Haryana Assembly) when i see him this evening and would let the members know about his reaction

Keep the fight on!


Sateypal

I don't think "boy" should be replaced by "girl".
Why is one better than the other? In our efforts to make corrections
we should not veer too far in either direction.

[sidchhikara]

If I were you I would have translated " Bhagwan kare aapke ghar beti paida ho".......:)

Poonam.... what about the middle sexes? I think the book should read .. "I hope you are blessed with a hermaphrodite" ... goofy s**t huh ? It might solve the population problem!!

[poonam]

Poonam.... what about the middle sexes? I think the book should read .. "I hope you are blessed with a hermaphrodite" ... goofy s**t huh ? It might solve the population problem!!


Not at all a bad idea Sid. Mujhey "hermophrodite" ki hindi (exact word) aati to yahi kehti...:D

Well, on a serious note, that was a classroom full of girls of 8 std, quite well an age to understand (and might have experienced too I bet) the kind of gender bias these girls endure in their upbringing. So if my translating into "bhagwaan aapke ghar beti paida kare” brings a smile on their faces …wots the harm in that? I would go for that only regardless of what s**t the books say....

[navingulia]

'May god bless you with a daughter!' is better since we have to negate the bias for sons. People have to realise that daughters are also a blessing and very possibly a bigger blessing.
'May God bless you with a healthy child!' is also good option.

[dahiyars]

Dear Navin Gulia,

I fully agree that chapter or the sentence has a gender Bias and we should see to it that all the text Books should be gender friendly. Our Culture is full of gender Biasis. On Birth of a boy we beat a Thali and that of a girl ham Theekra Phortey Hain. Similarly we celebrate Chhat of a Boy and not the girl.
Namkaran sanskar ceremony is for boy and not girl.On birth of a girl the mother is given 5kg of desi ghee and for boy she is given 10 kg of desi ghee.
Really it is a serios matter and we should something for it.

R.S.Dahiya

[kabir]

How about saying, "May god bless you with twins -- a girl and a boy -- and then put a full stop after that'' ? Killing two birds (gender bias and population explosion) with a stone:D .


Well, on a serious note, that was a classroom full of girls of 8 std, quite well an age to understand (and might have experienced too I bet) the kind of gender bias these girls endure in their upbringing. So if my translating into "bhagwaan aapke ghar beti paida kare” brings a smile on their faces …wots the harm in that? I would go for that only regardless of what s**t the books say....

[ritu]

may god bless u with a healthy child.:)

[gauravgu]

Dear friends,

I am also attaching one more document regarding Gender discrimination.
This is really a serious loophole and need to be tackled sensitively.
May be the intention of author is quiet honest while giving this text..i mean may be author did not include this stuff deliberately..
Anyhow the point is that we need to seriously look into it before it is too late..

Regards,

Gaurav Gulia (http://www.jatland.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20064&goto=newpost)

[dahiyars]

Dear Gaurav Gulia

Very True.Rag rag mai Gender Bias bharya Sai. We should do something.

R.S.Dahiya

[navingulia]

Deshwal Bhaisaab, Any progress?
Can we have this correction made?

Or will it end where it began? - a trivial issue

[ramksehrawat]

I totally agree... I would have done the same! :p

The book depicts the typical Indian mentality. Wrong translation is no answer. I think to neutralise the effect the teacher could give further examples by replacing the word 'son' with daughter and child.

Poonam and Satyeshwar's comments reminded me of a true incident in a village. It so happened that one day the English teacher was on leave and the PTI was asked to take control of the class during English period. The PTI went to the class and in a fit of boast told the kids: "arre angreji ki kitab kadh lyo" and told one of the boys to read from a lesson (which was about how a child averts a railway accidents with his red shirt). After a while when the students had completed the first para, the PTI said "arr kise ki samajh me kime nah aya ho to boojh liyo". A student got up and asked: "Masterji, shirt mane ke ho sai". Master ki halat kharab hogi, thodi der to saans na aayi, pher chhore dhore gaya aur uke ek kham kha eh dhar diya aur bolya: "arre nalayak, shirt mane bhi na bera, baith jya shirt mane chaadar ho sai".