Return To Innocence

Life surely is a funny mystery….We all come into this earth with a purpose, with a special story to share. Some stories are extraordinarily beautiful, but usually they are short; some may be enriching or lacklustre, and they almost go on for a while. We always consider adulthood to be the most important aspect of our lives, for it is the age of responsibility, setting a name for ourselves and so on….but we almost forget the previous chapters of our lives, the most golden part of any story—our childhood.

Everyone remembers their childhood, some may have very fond memories, the rest may be troubled, and our present character, i.e, the roles that we play today are shaped, almost predominantly, by the life lived in our respective golden chapters. If I could sum up my entire childhood in a single word, it would simple be beautiful, although not a very fancy word to describe my surge of emotions that engulf me whenever I think about those days gone by, yet for the sake of everybody’s patience before I get completely lost in my loqacuity, I simply will have to make do with a single word :)….. I was born in Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa, famous for its Olive Ridley turtles, the Sun Temple, home of the reknowned Odissi form of dancing, and a recent survivor of the terrible cyclone Phailin. But these are facts that you and I know, I was still a baby and have no memories of that place save for the fact that I was born there. My growth and making (mostly breaking, because I was very naughty!) mostly took place in South India—first, in the land of the gods, Kerala, and then, in the land of rice( the former Andhra Pradesh)—those were the best years of my life—from being scared to death by the Kathakali dancers to being lost in Hyderabad and walking 15 kms back to my home when I was 6 ( I am not making this up, it seriously happened!)—I learnt, laughed, cried, played, and lived the most fabulous years of my life there.

But this is not about me, its about all of us. Its weird to see that why we as children would always wish to grow up so fast that we can one day become this or that and rule the world, and once that we finally do grow up, we regret and yearn for those youthful days again. Its one of life’s most basic ironies, a way of telling us that having is not as significant as wanting. As children, we had no boundations nor were we weighed down by responsibilities, and the best part about that time, according to me, was that we all experienced our ‘first’ moments— our first steps, our first words, and growing a little further, our first kisses, our first movies, our first dates, our first loves, our first heartbreaks, and so on…. And this is what I believe that we in our adult years miss the most, these ‘first’ moments; alright, maybe we do have a couple of unique firsts in the adult years as well, but its nothing compared to that ecstatic feeling, that thrill, the rush of a thousand impulses surging throughout your body when you saw or felt something for the first time in your lives and that too in your childhood. Now, all the aforementioned ‘first’ moments can be experienced again and again throughout the rest of our lives, but they are of secondary importance, the feelings felt for in those moments are second-rate, like buying a second-hand book of a top-notch bestseller/old classic………point being, that those feelings are not the same as they were felt for the first time, now it seems all too predictable, intended, or natural, and this is what I feel is the reason behind an adult’s growing cynicism towards life.

During my college years, people would rebuke me, would make fun or poke me about my child-like behavior that I would exhibit at times, but I felt that why the rush to grow up, act mature, and act responsible so soon? Life does give us a few good kicks, but does that mean we grow callous and totally indifferent about it, or do we stand up laughing like we did when we fell playing as kids and go about creating a ruckus again? 😛   There is no point nor no justification to live an adult life in a completely adult way, its just plain boring! Even if we grow up to be parents, we would still look at our children and be reminded, unfailingly, of our own childhood days, and would act like kids around our kids. Why? Its because deep down in our most primal of emotions, there is still an inner child in all of us that we lock away and instead adopt the mask of maturity. If we compare an image of a busy street filled with adults and then the image of that very same street filled with children, what differences would we see? Adults would simply walk past each other, oblivious and apathetic, whereas, children would jump, dance, play, sing and have fun with each other, now which do you think is the better scenario of the two? The recent viral video of an Evian ad showing adults looking into the mirror only to see their toddler versions shaking a leg with each other and other rib-tickling mannerisms is a very good example.

So, in the end, its not that I wish for a world completely devoid of maturity, its always wise to have the best of both worlds, i.e., the wisdom and experience of an adult as well as the immaculate innocence and joy of a child. If we can only learn to achieve a balance between the two, there is no possible barrier to having a complete, happy, joyful, and a well-functioning society. But, its also a wishful thinking, the complete antithesis of it which some of you might say, like my college friends said earlier, to me: “Grow Up!!”