How ‘sweet’ is 16 ??

What does ‘16’ mean to us Indians?

• You are jostling with your first ever board exams and to top it, there is that persistent sword on your head what subjects to opt for high school.
• You’re giggling and making silly comments about the teacher teaching Reproduction in Biology.
• You have probably very recently got your own individual room in your house (or there is high probability, you are still sharing with your sibling)
• Your parents are slyly sneaking into your computer/ laptop to make sure you are not into visiting porn sites
• Just an extended private time in your room alone, and your mom is worried what you are upto. (I don’t think Indian mothers go the extent of thinking you might be masturbating, but still it’s a discomforting thought for her)
• You mother never misses an opportunity to complain to your dad how you just waste time on phone/ chatting/ facebook with friends and are not concentrating on your studies.
• Girls !! I assume you still leave home for a party with that shrug on so that you can get rid of it no sooner you are out of your house. It is behenji to be so fully clad, after all.
• Don’t even think of drinking at 16, you still have good 9 years to go before you can enter that bar/ pub
• Also let’s not forget, in our country, if you are accused of rape at 17, you are tried as a juvenile
• By the way, you still can’t vote. You are too young to make that decision for the country
• And how could I miss this one, you probably don’t yet have an ID card and you still can’t drive on the roads. Maximum, you can be a learner

And now GoM brings down consensual sex age to 16 “on the ground that marriages happen at an early age in rural India. The bringing down of the age will prevent in criminalisation of sex.”

So going by the above- as per sequential order, one’s life has been streamlined as follows: Sex at 16, vote at 18, marry at 21 and by the time you are 25, and your life is hell, go ahead and Drink !!

So at 16, you have enough wisdom to decide who to sleep with (Can’t deny a few might, but for the majority of the rest, I can’t vouch). Congratulations to you all, who just turned 16. To hell with the government and our politicians (can’t still say whether it’s a good or bad move), but as always, your logic and reasons stink and the ‘grounds’ that you lay down are lame as ever.

PS: The age 16 for consensual sex is promising. It is natural after all. But the question is are ‘we’ Indians ready for it? Is it only applicable for the DPS and those fancy metro school kids (not that anything stopped them till date)? I have no answers yet !!