A Happy Children's Day to the Child Within Us

The classrooms were all draped in colourful decorations, the children all joyful and chirpy, and the school auditorium looked just perfect, ready for a grand celebration. That's what our Children's Day looked like. The time flew by, we became grown-ups, and completely forgot what the happiness of those innocent, lively moments in our childhood felt like.

 As we begin to experience 'adulting', we start taking responsibility, learning different things, change priorities. We start getting more and more mature, but our inner child, craving to be acknowledged and cared for, is always ignored and unheard.

But then sometimes, there are some unexpected moments, instances, where we feel truly alive again, which give us that sort of heartfelt happiness again, even if it's momentary. For some it might be watching a cartoon film they loved, for others, it may be eating chocolate after a long time, or simply taking a walk in the park they used to play in every day as a kid. These little things remind us how free-spirited we used to be, and how full of life these moments made us feel, always. Many of us are away from home, away from our parents, and simply going home makes that child within us immensely happy. All we want is that kind of peace, to return to our happy places which give us that happiness, once again. Happiness connects us to our lost childhood selves once again, happiness, that helps us feel good even when things aren't that good. And that connection, that happiness is what makes us beautiful human beings, that is what is just the reason to live, and the reason to love ourselves a little more every day.

 This Children's Day, let's promise our inner child, that we'll always try to listen to it, try to acknowledge it as much and as often as we can, and try to recreate all those happy moments.

 Happy Children's Day to the Child within Each of Us!

                                         Vaadasabha Member

                                        - Shreya Sabnis

Children's Day

Decades ago, India decided to shift its Children’s Day celebrations to 14th November, in memory of late Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Ji. He believed, “The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. How we bring them up will determine the country's future.”

His legacy of education for the children has persisted over time and a gradual increase in literacy rates has been observed each year. The education policymakers have been trying to improve the quality with every revision. This has seemingly helped in preparing the children for a challenging future.

Well, not every child gets their fair share of opportunities to form a definite life ahead. Some children start their race to survival way early in life when they should be worrying about a muddy paper boat. The tracks of this race might differ for each child but lead to a similar goal for all. Forgotten hobbies, discontinued explorations, and toxic relationships, have become standard elements of routine because the child needs to grow up well. By growing up well, they mean good income, high respect and a ‘settled’ family. While qualifying for the expected image by society, many children sometimes lose their childhood or sometimes don’t even get to live it. The students studying ferociously for exams live parallel to children earning at an early age. When the adults look at kids smiling the widest and laughing the loudest, they recall their own carelessly innocent childhoods.

They say kids grow faster. So does the world. And the upcoming world will be much broader with more ‘types’ of people. Along with everything else, a general acceptance is just as important. There will be children who will grow up and still not be able to speak, listen, see, walk, or reproduce, and there will be children who would want to have separate pronouns for themselves. Being curious about a spaceship landing on Mars is equally good as being curious about the cloud shapes. Solving complex numerical problems is equally fruitful as playing cricket with friends for a few more hours. A child’s skills and curiosity are neither answerable to analytical adults, nor are they too young to wonder aloud.

The world is massive, the possibilities are endless and children are persistently curious, including the ones we grow up to forget. Despite being the one with the least responsibilities, perfection and maturity, the child inside us still deserves to be celebrated in the greatest ways possible.

                                                                     Vaadasabha Member

                                                                    - Sneha Jain