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India Teens Skirt Traditions And Taboos Through Texting

Source: Huffington Post

Jun 22, 2009

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By Saritha Rai | GlobalPost

BANGALORE -- Bangalore schoolgirl Nitisha Jaykumar's latest acquisition is a Nokia cell phone, which her protective parents gave her when she turned 16 a few months ago. But now, unbeknownst to them, she is on the verge of acquiring a not-so-common schoolgirl possession here -- a boyfriend.

Making full use of the curtain of privacy that cell phone communication grants her, Nitisha is bold and flirtatious in her messages with male classmates. Lest her parents suspect her nightly preoccupation with romancing by text, she puts the phone on silent and suppresses the daytime yawns.

As cell phones become the coveted teenage possession in newly prosperous India, text messaging is the new-fangled route to romance for the country's urban young, much to the disapproval and infuriation of older Indians.

"Cell phones have become the way to circumnavigate a variety of parental controls," said Ashish Patil, a vice president with MTV India, which researches youth trends. With cell phones, communication is private and individual, he said. He quoted an

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