Murugesan and Chinnamma's son Ponnusamy hanged himself last Sunday sfternoon. I went down to Valagapattu, later, to meet the bereaved parents. and found the whole village in a state of bewilderment. Ponnusamy was 12 years old. And why did he commit suicide? Because, that morning, his father had sold a goat which he used to graze, and was attached to.

To me it is beyond comprehension that a 12-year-old would think of hanging himself, let alone carry out the deed.

When I got back, Badri Baba and Varuna wanted to know Who? Why? How? So we all got talking.

We feel that TV with its mindless violence contributes a lot to this violent attitude to solving problems. The media is so all-pervasive that if we do not teach our children how to live, the media will. And much of what the media peddles is consumerism, sentimentality and melodrama.

Rarely are children taught to resolve conflicts by some sort of consensus rather than by brute force. "Children are like that", "Let them sort it out", "Don't interfere in their games" is what is generally heard. We, however, feel very strongly that we, as adults, need to see that conflicts are not resolved by recourse to violence of any sort. We must develop in children a respect for the other person and the other point of view. Only so will children grow up into adults who are capable of resolving conflicts civilizedly.

Now, one sees people in all walks of life, taking positions and being unwilling to even look at another's point of view. People are willing to use loud voices, fists, stones... a la Hindi/Tamil films to defend their positions. Quite obviously, children see only this method of resolving conflicts. And in such an atmosphere of "Might is Right" it is surely not surprising to see all sorts of Chauvinism rife.

Valagapattu, as a village is in a state of bewilderment. They seem not to have become inured to the violence. Some people are talking about root causes; about dealing with their children differently. If the talk leads to action, and children are not exposed to violence, in TV or in real life, perhaps Ponnusamy's death would not have been in vain.