The child in us

There is, we believe a child in each one of us, whatever the calendar might tell us about our biological age. The child spirit lies dormant, smothered under practicalities and mundanities, but there are times when it will not be smothered, and irrepressibly will step out and make its presence felt.

For some of us, the moment this happens is when we are under great stress. When things go wrong or will not go right and it looks as if the tension wires holding us together will snap, the child decides to save the day. By making us switch off, take a mental break, and instead of worrying over a very topsy balance sheet or quibbling with a superior who seems blessed with only one eye, we take a long moment to admire a leaf, notice how green it is, trace its veins and wonder what makes leaves grow, what indeed makes trees grow, where seeds come from, and finally why we are here and what we will achieve by being born, living, dying.
Coming as it does straight from eternity, the child holds in it the larger view, the knowledge that it is but a small actor on a big stage. This is what, in that moment of stress, it tries to remind us of….

Children are innocent beings, in tune with Nature, with their selves… at least till the adult perception of the world and its mazes intrude on the childlike vision. But even as we grow older and refocus our thinking to take in human truths to replace the divine ones, somewhere we let that part of us hibernate. Till that moment when we need rescue, and find it in our real selves.

Children need to play, laugh and cry. It's a part of learning the ropes of life and realising how to negotiate in an ever changing scenario. Lessons learnt in childhood never get wasted, as long as they are self taught and not imposed on a child and contrary to his grain.

Which brings me to the crux of my argument: on why children should not be engaged as household help. But they are. Even if there is a law. Even if children in industries and publicly visible jobs can be saved by the law; those who are hidden in homes, to wash and clean and cook and toil without respite or pay, continue to suffer in silence and without chance of rescue.

Yet, till recently, orphanages had a systemised way of sending children to work in homes, and if the child, thanks to a scarred background showed signs of rebelliousness or a nasty streak, they fared the worse for it at the hands of their employers.
It is hard to understand how someone employing a child can, especially if they have children of their own around, treat one child so differently from the rest.

But it happens. As the Hyderabad based case of the girl who was thrashed and starved, and her bones broken because she was not a 'good worker' tells us.

Sure the child put up with it, not only because she had no place to run away to, or means of escape probably, but because the child in her must have found myriad ways to push the trauma of her life into the realm where it was a dream, and make the imagination that children have at their beck and call, the reality.

It's a gift that keeps children resilient in the worst situations, and it is thanks to it that we as adults manage to coast over the speed bumps that the road called life peppers our way with. The day the child in us is killed, life becomes a shell, no longer worth living.
The wise man learns from the child, and does not try to teach it, beyond the basic rules of life!