Entrapment

'We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.'

My vacation is on in full swing; actually it is coming to an end. I spent most of the vacation studying, refreshing what I learnt in the previous classes so that I am better equipped with the knowledge required to learn new things this coming year.

The vacation has given me a chance to also catch up on a past love, cartoons! I don't remember when I last tuned(tooned?) into Cartoon Network, before this vacation. Ah! Those were the years! Swat Kats, The Flintstones, Tom & Jerry, Top Cat, I used to watch so many animated series! It used to be fun coming back from school and hopping onto my couch and catching up with my favourite cartoons. I was not conversant with English then, and I hardly used to grasp the accent and even the humour used in the cartoons, but nevertheless I just enjoyed watching them.

But so much has changed over all these years. The kids in India are not served the same fun they used to be before. Consumerism has taken over in a big way. And it is visible to me whenever I play cricket with my friends . The kids that play in the same ground seem to be swayed by the ads they show on the kiddie channels. They have become materialistic and I feel they have not had the same experience of watching cartoons which I had. The innocence seems to be missing. The new rage is of course, Orkut.

What I want to highlight is the complete insensitiveness on part of the channels, Cartoon Network included, in the kind of ads they show. Imagine the kinds of ads I saw on these kids channels.

Perfumes(The Axe Effect!), Hair styling gels(that brand whose catch-line goes, Very Very Sexy; they had toned down to Very Very Cool or something like that but now that seems to have been thrown to the wind), Sanitary Napkins(some might say they should), Ads for cars which have kids urging parents to buy a 'big' car, Bikes(stunts included, with a rider of course; no pun intended), fairness creams(wtf?), Sunscreen lotions, Exotic Holiday locales and the fucking list goes on.

Somebody should step in and order the channels to pull these things off their slots. Imagine the kind of impact ads for fairness creams and anti-acne creams would have on prepubescent kids just out of their sandlot years!

I was appalled to see the depth to which integrity of the channel bosses has sunk . It is disgusting. All over the world programming content for kids is strictly monitored so that kids do not develop a materialistic mindset. It's high time we had that in India too.

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