Recalling the child in you today?
B. Yerram Raju
November 14 is remembered as Children’s day. I recall my
younger days when standing among the crowd on the roadside of the Main Road of
Visakhapatnam, I was standing with a rose in one hand and the national flag in
another to greet Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister, who came for
launching Jala Usha. When Nehru picked up the rose from my hand as from a few
of my neighbouring children standing like me, I truly thought, I made the day. There
were no mobile phones to catch it on a camera to show to posterity my joy.
Nehru had love for children is very well known. He believed
today’s child is a responsible citizen tomorrow. The right of a child to grow
and blossom has permanence. He believed in nurturing the ambitions of a child.
The smile on an innocent child face unfolds to us the
grandeur of nature. His/her ambition is the future of the world. His innocence
is infectious. Traveling in a train, that too driven by a coal engine creating
a smoke screen on the face, the question that the child puts to the parents is
why are the trees moving backwards when the train is moving forward? Why would
the birds travel along with us? Whenever the train stopped in the night why
would I see the same moon and stars and why they do not move backward?
Similarly, when I stood on the shores of Vizag beach, why do
the colours of the sea keep changing? Why would my feet soaked in water sink in
sand?
I hear the small-size carts selling ice creams, fried
groundnuts, a tasty dal mixture made just ready for you but packed in a news
paper cone. They are mouth-watering and irresistible. I make a pressing demand
and when not responded readily cried so loud that the world would be lost
without having them. The parents concede. There was no fear of pollution,
contamination, or threat of food poisoning!!
As a child, perhaps I never thought that my neighbour
belonged to a different caste. I happily shared whatever I had with him. I sat
by his side in the government school, for there were no private schools. I
played with him and soiled my clothes in the process only to have a beating and
a bath on my return. The days were merry and 14th November etched in
my memory. How many children from a poor or lower middle class still enjoy the
same way? May not be many as the schools are no longer the same.
Teachers in the primary and secondary schools were a great
inspiration not withstanding their unsparing rod to teach a lesson. The parents
never questioned the teacher. But they used to question the teachers if their
children got poor marks in a subject! Those days were different but certainly
worth a ton of lovely remembrance.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/fincop/recalling-the-child-in-you-today/?val=3728
