It’s Children’s day, and there’s something about children that reminds me that we once belonged to that happy category of human beings.
I was parked at a signal recently. A child in ragged clothes came across and stretched out his hand, asking for alms. I couldn’t deny him that. I took out a coin and placed it his palm, but looked into his eyes. They were bright with expectation, with none of the morbidness of his situation troubling him. The light turned green and I moved on, stopped at a hotel to have a cup of coffee, and there wiping my table before I could order a coffee, was another child, dressed in a comparatively clean uniform, holding a plastic tray and a rather soiled rag with which he cleaned the table. As I watched him do that, (he did it rather mechanically), my thoughts wandered home, where, when I was his age, my parents did that for me, and now that I am their age, I do that for my children, for there’s something about children, that makes us want to do something for them.
Maybe it’s a combination of their innocence, their gaiety, their complexity expressed simply, their smiles, their appearance, their responsiveness, their ability to come up with the most interesting take on events around them – I dont know what, but when I see children, doing for me, what I should have been doing for them, I’m reminded of how much I have regressed as an adult, to the extent, that I’m immune to seeing them wiping the table for me or begging in the street?… except perhaps when it is my child.
There’s something about children, that shows, when you see how they love – freely and with great passion. No barriers, no holding back, no race, no color, no creed. Just stand in the basement of an apartment complex and watch them play and you’ll come away invigorated. There are no manipulations, no greed, no lies and very little jealously. Everything is not hunky dory though. There is hurt, if they are not loved in return, there is reservation, if they are repressed and there is suffering and manifestation, if they are abused and suicidal tendencies when they are unable to cope with parental and peer pressures.
While the transformation from larvae into butterflies, is painful, the tragedy is, that the beauty inside fades, and, while the skin outside remains vibrant, the adult, becomes everything the child was not – Jealous, greedy, manipulative, acquisitive, as he builds all kinds of barriers around him in the name of self protection.
The world is made for children, not for adults – just look around you at nature, its beauty and its openness – but adults took it over and made it their own. They subdued nature, concertized it and then went after its children, using them as mules, as outlets for their aggression – both sexual and physical and to deny them the chance to dance in the rain. Perhaps, they did not want the child in them to rear its head, for there’s something about children, you can’t suppress.
But as we age, the child in us will reemerge. We will look around again for the affection, the help, the emotional and physical support that we got when we were children, but this time, from our children. We must be aware, however, that we might not get it – certainly not in the way we gave to our children, for the world has moved on relentlessly. Hope lies eternal, but is often belied, by circumstances.
Nevertheless, there’s something about children that tells us we must do right by them, if we want to heal the world and make it a better place.
