Wish all my blogger friends a warm and beautiful Diwali! Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Roshni of Big A Little a on my blog. Find her blog on Facebook at Big A Little a. I have known Roshni only for a short time, but I instantly felt a connect with her. Like me, she is a mom to two naughty boys, and her blog is filled with their crazy antics, something that I identify so much with :). She is a warm, friendly person, and I feel very welcome in her space. If you like parenting blogs, you must visit her blog. Today, she writes a lovely post for me. Thank you Roshni…
When I was 11, I visited the Arctic. I remember it clearly. I was standing knee deep in snow in the middle of nowhere. All around were mountains of powder-soft, snow-white ice. Snowflakes swirled around me, and I stretched out my hands to catch them. I looked around and saw a faint plume of smoke in the distance. I got prepared to trudge through the snow to reach that place, but surprisingly, I appeared to glide over the snow to reach a colony of igloos. The smoke was coming out of one of the chimneys. Getting down on my hands and knees, I crawled through the entrance to see an Eskimo family preparing a meal of seal meat. Warm cozy furs lined the wall and the Eskimos were squatting on the floor, also dressed in fur coats, thick trousers and knee-length boots. I glanced down to see what I was wearing and was shocked to find that I had on my school dress, which was a thin cotton white uniform. I crawled out of the igloo, wondering why I was not feeling cold.
Just as I came out of the entrance backwards, I heard a growl behind me. Half-knowing what to expect, I slowly turned around… to find myself face to face with a gigantic furry polar bear. I was frozen to the spot; petrified!! My mind raced, trying to think of what to do, wishing I hadn’t left the cozy igloo. The polar bear towered over me, waving his huge paws. Then he opened his massive jaws… but, instead of the bellow that I expected, he let out a loud ringing sound…..brrrrrinnnng!!!!
It was then that I came out of my daydream! I found myself, sitting in class at school, at my desk, with my pen lying beside me, and my final Geography exam paper lying next to it, only half written!! It was the question about the Arctic and Eskimos in it that had started me off on my daydream. The loud bell that I heard was the signal that the time for completing the paper was over. I looked in dismay at the teacher moving from row to row, collecting the answer scripts. I remember feverishly scribbling something in an attempt to try and complete at least one more question. That attempt was in vain as whatever I wrote was totally illegible!
Throughout my childhood, I have been constantly entertained by my imagination… I would retreat into it at the oddest times and the oddest places. My mother continuously got complaints from my teachers that I was “never there in class.” I remember one of my teachers stopping her lecture quite frequently and saying in a very weary voice, “… and now, can we ask Roshni to please come back from her fairytale world to this one?!” But, I did not give it up, as it was my safe haven to go to when I wanted.
As I grew older and started taking a little interest in the world around me, I wondered if other kids and grownups also daydreamed like I had. To my surprise, I really did not find much evidence of it in people around me. Maybe they were too busy taking in all that was around them to retreat into themselves. Maybe they never felt the need to do so! It was all very strange to me!
Imagine my delight then when I came across this comic strip for the first time: Calvin and Hobbes! For those of you who are not familiar with it, it’s about this 5-year-old boy who has a stuffed toy tiger named Hobbes. To Calvin, Hobbes is real; Hobbes is his only playmate and someone whom he can really talk to. Calvin also spends most of his time in class daydreaming, much to the dismay of his teachers. I dreamt of having a boy just like Calvin!
I hardly daydream nowadays! I guess somewhere in the middle of trying to interact with people, going to new places, and taking care of my own family, I gave up my friend, my imagination. I gave it up to get to know my own boys and to make new friends, and I am not sorry. I am happy to have done so, as it had taught me a lot and I was ready to move on. But I am also happy to have my friend to go back to whenever I want.
That’s when I started wondering about kids nowadays. Do they have their imagination? Do they dream? Do they get transported to wonderful new worlds where anything is possible? …where there are lush green meadows or icy slopes to roll down on… strange animals to frolic with… wonderful, bizarre sights to feast your eyes on? Or, like Calvin imagines, dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts roaming the cities, devouring all your enemies! Zooming into outer space in your space shuttle; the superhero of the earth! Do other kids dream like that?
I’m not sure. And, the reason is this. Calvin and I had this in common that we did not like socializing. We were extremely unsocial and so; no one really would come and try to play with us. As a result, we were pretty much left to entertain ourselves. So, we were left for our books and our ‘real friends’ to come to our rescue. Calvin’s tiger and my imagination would come to life and we would be off on our latest adventure! Where do kids have time to feel bored nowadays? They have school, homework, friends, emails, the Internet, Nintendo DSs, iPads, sports, piano classes etc etc! When can they ever stop, sit and just stare into space like Calvin and I did?
I’m not saying it’s a good thing necessarily to do that. I definitely don’t want any kid to go through the trial of the geography exam! But I wish we had more time to introspect nowadays! John McGrail, a clinical hypnotherapist in Los Angeles says “Daydreaming is looked upon negatively because it represents ‘non-doing’ in a society that emphasizes productivity. We are under constant pressure to do, achieve, produce, succeed.”
But daydreaming can be beneficial in many ways and, ironically, can actually boost productivity. All Calvin’s philosophical speculations with Hobbes are a result of his daydreaming… thinking of the abstract; thinking beyond the mundane. As a result, he comes up with the most bizarre, creative ideas. These often are too bizarre for people around him, but that’s another story!
I think I learnt a lot about myself and learnt finally to like myself before I started liking other people; and I really feel that helped me interact with other people too in the process. I don’t know whether people nowadays do that. Just a few days back, I heard in a news report that today’s youth have problems with face-to-face communication because they are always using social media to communicate.
So, finally, it makes me wonder…. What do today’s youngsters dream about? Do they dream about being Superman or do they dream about becoming rich? Do they dream at all? Are they so grounded in reality that they can never indulge in flights of fantasy? Are they so very aware of their surroundings and the world around them that nothing is left to the imagination?
Is childhood’s innocence finally lost?
Image courtesy: bookriot.com
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