Have you been a child lately?

May 22 2008

Have you ever danced in the first rains? Did you ever want to? I did. Yesterday. As I do every year. This is a childhood ritual. I remember school days when I would run down from my grandmom’s flat to get drenched in the rains. It is the most blissful feeling ever. You actually welcome nature.

There are communities across the world that celebrate nature and have rain festivals. Somehow many of us lose touch with that part of us. Yesterday as I stood drenched in the rains, I saw many adults standing in their balconies watching me and several children in the building behave like, yes you are right, hooligans! But it was fun. To shout with glee and dance to the raindrops. The children shivered yet didn’t give up. Everyone says we don’t have enough free time and hence go for holidays. But whatever happened to the small pleasures of getting drenched in the rains?

The smell of freshly drenched mud is the most memorable point of every rains. It brings back several memories many of which involve me actually eating mud :) I know many of the adults who stood in their balconies wanted to come down and join us but thought it was too childish. But as Geet says in Jab We Met “Its fun to be childish.”

I have friends who play like children. They want to win, don’t know how to play but nonetheless play. And they enjoy it. I know of people who never fear losing or looking like a fool. It is they whom I admire. Somewhere growing up involves instilling fear, embarrassment and guilt within us. We are “not good enough.” The film Bhootnath is really nice in the fact that it shows how often as children we never fear much – like ghosts. It is mostly adults who instil that fear of the unknown within children. We pass the “Crown of Fear” to others.

And to think, I am not even fond of children. In fact I repel them and vice versa. But that doesn’t mean I wont fight for their right to be irritating, stupid, brave and extremely childish :)