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
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