Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni sent a special message for the school children on the occasion of Children’s Day. Dhoni threw the light over how to not get bullied in the school and avoid such things.
He revealed that he has never got bullied in the school and reasons as he used to play with 5-6 years older students.
During an interview with The Print, he stated “I don’t think I was ever bullied. One of the reasons could be that often, people who are very small, thin or timid, you tend to get away without being bullied; if someone is very cute and cuddly, he/she also gets away with things. I was small and timid.”
“Another reason could be that I used to play with boys that were much older to me, and they saw me as a younger brother. We lived in a colony and were only two or three of us that were of the same age group, the other children were at least five or six years older to us. Maybe that is one of the reasons that I play cricket well because I have always played cricket with people who were older than me, which meant that they had more power and they understood the game better. Playing with them made me better.”
Dhoni revealed that apart from school, he also escaped from bullying during his initial days of the cricketing journey. “So as far as bullying is concerned, I do not think we were bullied at any point of time. Even when we started playing cricket at the under-16 or under-19 level, we were never bullied. Often, it depends on the seniors – how the seniors are in the team environment affects the nature of the team, and the juniors also get groomed according to them. What is important is that you keep on passing the baton to the next generation,” he added.
He voices against bullying and wants a friendly culture and atmosphere in the society. Dhoni further said “Bullying is not a thing that should happen. In a society, it does happen, but there are ways to deal with it. One of the effective ways is to pass on the culture of being against the concept of bullying, and the culture of being nice to people. That is what life is all about.”
While replying to his response, if he ever gets bullied, he replied “To start off, I would not like to be in a situation where there is fist-fight or a verbal fight going on. If, for some reason, something like that happens and someone hits me, the first thing would be to ask the person to stop doing it, because everything can be resolved by sitting across the table and talking. If he does not stop, then there are different views on how a situation should be handled.”
“So, I would ask him to stop, if he doesn’t stop, I would like to keep a bit of distance from him, but if he is still piling on to me, I would definitely like to defend myself. I would stand up to it, I would not just take everything just because he looks slightly older or bigger.”
The 36-year-old thinks that it is important to have a conversation if the person who is bullying is open to it. “I think it is important to have a conversation, but you can only have a conversation if the person who is bullying you is open to it, and you don’t start a confrontation with him at that point. The person may not bully you at that point of time due to the confrontation, but the idea is for him to internalize that bullying is bad and that he should not do it. It needs to be a part of the system,” said Mahi. “He needs to get used to the idea that bullying anyone is not nice. It shouldn’t be that he bullies me because he thinks I am weak, and when I retaliate, he thinks I am strong, so he stops bullying me but picks on someone else.”
“If you are bullied, definitely tell your parents, tell your teacher, and I would recommend a gradual way of doing it. Your parents may get worried, so approach your teacher first, and tell your teacher that he or she is bullying you. The teachers will help you. If that does not happen, you have your parents to turn to.”
“I would actually say, start with your friends, and then go to your teacher because that also teaches you how to deal with different scenarios. At the end of the day, in life you will often be in situations that you have to deal with yourself, so try to deal with the guy or the girl, and if he or she is unreasonable, take the help of your friends, then come the teacher, the class teacher and then the parents,” Dhoni added.
“If you ask me, life is not fair, and we have to be prepared for it. Everything does not come in a simple way, or on a silver platter. Dealing with these things is important. The person bullying may actually require more help because psychologically there may be something wrong, but he or she may not consider that thing to be wrong, so you are actually going to help him or her realize that what he or she is doing is wrong. It is a win-win scenario where you come out of an unpleasant situation, and the other person realizes what he or she is doing is wrong.”
“At the same time, do not absorb everything while thinking that if you ignore him or her it is fine. It is not fine. You may have the mental or the physical strength to absorb it and keep moving on in life, but not every child is the same. The child may become shy and may avoid talking to new people and may go into a shell. There are a lot of psychological changes that may happen, so make sure that if bullying is happening to you or around you, take a stand. Help the person who is being bullied to get out of it,” he concluded.
