By Sharanya Gopinathan
Twitter user @saileenas brought this tweet by @HaddHaiYaar to our notice earlier today.
It’s from a health and physical education textbook titled Health and Physical Education Textbook, and was written by Dr VK Sharma, published by New Saraswati House. The book is taught to students of the twelfth standard who study physical education under the CBSE, although it isn’t published by NCERT. Anuj Khurana (@HaddHaiYaar) said that a friend of his brother’s sent it to him, presumably as he was studying for his board exam which takes place on the 13th of the month.
It’s a bit unclear in the image provided, but the esteemed Dr. Sharma also goes on to say that the ‘V’ shape is considered the best for males. While he cited Miss Universe competitions as his source for the statistic on the best female shape, he did not cite any similarly weighty sources for his information on the best male shape.
This reminds me of the time it was discovered that an NCERT textbook taught to students of the ninth standard was found to say that people who eat non-vegetarian food “easily cheat, tell lies, they forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes.”