He wakes up only after his parents have left for work. After a quick bath, he gets into his jeans and tee-shirt — gifted by one of his girlfriends — and takes his bike to reach the main road. There his friends wait at their regular rendezvous — a teashop or a bus stand — and ogle at girls who are on their way to school.
For most boys in the age group of 17-28 in Chemmenchery, that is the daily routine, claim Kumar (19) and his friends.
“In Chemmenchery, almost 90 per cent of the young boys believe in enjoying life to the fullest. We don’t go to work. We want to be happy every day. We are smart and have figured out ways of financing ourselves.”
Oh, really? How does anybody monetise loafing? One way is to have five girlfriends at the same time, points out a smug Saravanan. “To love five girls at the same time you need a lot of talent.”
“First we follow one girl, and keep giving her looks for a week. Sometimes we follow her on our bikes as she goes to school in a bus. If we find the girl responding, we give her our phone number. Our first pick-up line: ‘I want to be your friend. Call me if you feel so.’”
Saravanan’s friend Vishwa picks up the narrative thread: “Next day, the girl will hopefully call. If she knows texting, she will message; else she will call. After a flurry of calls for a week, we stop calling. The girl gets tense, sends multiple text messages, trying to reach us. After receiving sufficient smses, we send an sms saying ‘No currency’ and ask her to recharge our pre-paid cell phone if she intends to talk. Shortly thereafter, the phone gets recharged.” Isn’t that monetising?
“Of the five lovers, each one helps us in one way or the other. On days when we have fights with parents because we don’t go to work, we refuse to eat at home. For, lunch is just a text away to another gullible girlfriend,” confides Saravanan.
To round off the day, they claim they get pocket money to watch a movie and buy booze from yet another girlfriend. “Of all the five girls, we develop some attachment towards perhaps one. The rest are just meant to meet our needs. We let the relationship last as long as it can.” Sounds like a script out of Kollywood? Up to you to believe, they say.
But why are the girls stupid enough to explore a relationship with loafers? “We like the fact that the boy has a lot of style. He talks very well and is smartly attired. To top it all, he chose me among all girls within our peer group,” Kamala says with a grin. “We feel like a heroine in a movie when boys chase us,” adds Vaishnavi, who have no qualms about stealing money from her parents to fund her lover’s needs.
Some of the girls are aware of the fact that the boys might be seeing a few other girls. However, many would like to believe they are special; else why does he like her of all the other girls, goes the logic. Girls enjoy the attention they get from boys as it massages their ego.
In most cases, the relationship may proceed beyond going to the cinema and lead to physical intimacy, ending up in the girl getting pregnant. Remember these live in the same colony and some of them still go to school.
“Since both the boys and the girls swear by the casual attitude of instant gratification, they really don’t think about the long-term consequences. They just live in the moment,” observes A Devaneyan, director of Thozhamai, who has been working with the community for the past three years.
A few days ago, a 13-year-old girl from Chemmenchery who is in Class VIII in a nearby school, started puking in the classroom and later passed out. The principal and the teachers called a doctor, who found out that she was pregnant.
The school later told her parents that she was not doing well in studies and had indifferent health. They asked them to consult a doctor and issued a school transfer certificate. According to a doctor of a private hospital in the locality, “Each month at least 35-40 cases of young girls in the age group of 13 to 25 from Chemmenchery, come here for abortion.”
Staffers at the Chemmenchery and Sholinganallur government hospitals confirm the high abortion rate. The casual attitude towards sex has earned young girls in Chemmenchery a bad reputation among the neighbouring villages.
Krishna puts the Chemmenchery youth’s mindset in perspective: “When we lived in the city, most of us went to schools regularly. We had some hopes and dreams about doing well in life as we took inspiration from the peer group there. After we moved to Chemmenchery some seven years ago, most of us dropped out after Class VIII or X and were jobless. In the meantime, many political parties and goondas were looking for people like us. Every single youth in Chemmenchery is attached to some political party and has connections with the goondas. Over the years, we have lost the sense of fear. When we were living in the city, we used to ponder a lot before doing some wrong. Now we feel we can get away with anything. If at all we get into trouble, we just have to make a phone call; our thalaivar will bail us out.”
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