Good memory you have ya, I hardly remember anything I
did as a kid.
Was kind of a late
reply.
Mine was a
little quicker; I said
The trick is to never grow up. That way you don’t have
to remember the things you did as a kid cuz you’d still be doing or atleast
thinking the same things.
I thought more
after she said:
Ah! How I wish to be a kid again.
Children’s day is not far; remember to let yourself
loose this children’s day… Right now I gotta get some sleep... so bye good
night!
Little did I know
then that I would be thinking about this chat while at bed playing catch till
sleep was offered. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had just said
something that I had never really believed. Suddenly I had told someone that I
didn’t like growing up. Shocking. I really wanted to be a grown up. I was
always treated like a kid. Something less than grown up - insignificant. I
don’t know if it was my goofy way of talking and staying funny in an immature
way or just my appearance, but I was always looked upon as an insignificant
kid. I was always irritated when people called me or said that they thought of
me as a kid, especially girls! Huh! Wait till I take my pants off, you won’t
call me a kid then!
Thinking about
the insignificance of kids, it reminded me of an episode of Two and a Half Men;
where Charley tells Jake “you’re a kid,
it doesn’t matter what you think”
Well, I did
laugh at it.
Staying over the
thought of television I remembered a popular Hindi movie where Ranbir Kapoor
gets yelled at for being too immature by a girl who later becomes his lover.
Ranbir doesn’t retaliate in denial. He comes out and yells back at her
admitting that he is a kid, and if trying to prove yourself right or worrying about future is all that grownups
do then he never wants to grow up.
I appreciated
that scene, but always thought responsibility made me happy.
Another such
episode was from DraganBallGT. A scene where Goku, Pan and Trunks were looking
for a DragonBall under water. Guku just takes off all his cloths and jumps into
the pond. Pan gets grossed up looking at her nude grandpa. She yells at him and
tells him that he is an adult and should behave like one. To which, Goku says:
If being an adult means swimming with your clothes on,
then I never wanna grow up.
It’s just marvelous
how almost nothing bothers a kid. Children surely are the little lamps that
spread joy and love everywhere they go. An old story that’s still shared among
people of Vasantapura is the story of Raaghu Bhattar and Shiva Swamy of
Vasantapura. Shiva swamy and Raaghu Bhattar were big men of the village, one a devout
shiva worshiper and the other a strict vishnavaite. They never saw each other
and never entered each other’s temples. They were the modern day version of
vasista and vishwamitra.
It was the days
of the yearly village fest in vasantapura. The whole village was on the streets
and there were just as many visitors from other villages; some were city
dwellers from the nearby Bangalore. The scene was just lovely. Bouquets of
Music and Dance performances in the village’s center square, vendors of a
hundred kind occupying every inch of the road and women wearing cloths of every
imaginable color, all saree clad; each like a traditional Indian woman.
Raaghu Bhattar
and Shiva swamy were very busy, talking, meeting, smiling and bowing at every
visitor. They had to keep their contacts with the rich devotees. Though they
were both happy and occasionally spoke to the same person, they never once
looked at each other.
It was after the
dust had settled and evening prayers offered that everyone took to the center
square again. A kid tugged on shiva swamy’s dhoti. He was crying. A three year
old lost kid was lifted on to the shoulders by Shiva swamy who went about the
square trying to make the kid from crying. He knew very well the kid was Raaghu
Bhattar’s grandson. Yet he held the kid in his arms and walked over half the
village.
To this day, the dwellers of Vasantapura speak of this tale of how an
insignificant three year old melted the heart of a high priest who detested the
other pillar of the village.
Maybe that’s why
being a kid is so nice. Being insignificant and not bothered by it, not
bothered by position and status, and the least bothered about what others think
of us. Maybe it is the urge of proving
our significance that makes us old; the conscious struggle to make a place for
ourselves makes us lose the meaning of belonging.
People generally
see the dawning of responsibility or being able to take decisions or simple
earning and feeding as coming of age. But is it really worth it? Is money and
pride really worth the innocence and carefree childhood?
Everyone grows
up into an adult at some time. But that doesn’t mean the child in you has to die.
After all, Child
is Father of Man.
