Tender minds

Sometime back the news papers carried an article about this 10-year-old boy who prefers fighting bulls to playing football. He is Rafita Mirabal, the world’s youngest matador,already has 30 bullfights under his belt.

As per the papers he is quoted as saying “I get bored running up and down a field with a ball,” explains Rafita. “But if I don’t turn just right when a bull is charging at me —that’s much more exciting.”

Dad Rafael happily admits to passing on his own obsession with the sport to his son. “I’ve always loved it,” he says. “I used to watch bullfights as a kid, but I never expected that Rafita would become a fighter. “I showed him videos and read him stories and he was hooked. From the age of four we bought him toy bulls and simulated the fight. He talked about bulls every day.”

But there is one matador’s custom that Rafita is yet to carry out — the final death blow. He isn’t strong enough yet to drive a sword into a bull’s heart. “He might just wound the bull and then they’d say it is cruel,” says his manager Jose San Martin, referring to animal rights protests.

But both he and Rafael hope Rafita will start killing bulls by October — a month before his 11th birthday. “He’s almost ready,” says his dad. “He is almost strong enough.”It will be a proud moment for us when it happens.”

What do you think about a 10 year old boy waiting to drive his sword into the heart of his first bull? Even if in his country bull fighting is an accepted sport and there are no laws determining lower limit of age to participate in such a sport.

There are a lot of such situations in India too. There is the case of a doctor couple who made their 16 year old son perform a caesarian and recorded the whole procedure. There is the kid Budhia participating in marathon after marathon at a tender age.

Is it ultimate performance? Or is it deprivation of childhood? Will there be any such thing as a tender mind anymore?