When people say that kids brighten up lives, they are not wrong. From being a toddler to being teens to finally growing up to become parents, life completes a full circle. There are a million things that happen during a span of 24 hours in a day. Some make you smile, some frustrated, some sad, and some angry. But a child’s presence in the house or in the neighborhood can make you forget almost all the negative emotions and feelings which are hampering you, all the anger and the frustration and tensions of life. She can make you smile and make you feel like a child again. She grows up inch by inch before you every day, learning things by sometimes falling down and sometimes by watching others fail at them. She falls down and bruises herself, cries and asks for help, but soon she’s back as she was always seen, ever smiling and spreading happiness all over the place.
For people who travel by car or metro or any other form of transportation, many a times it happens that there is a child in the same compartment or in the car next to them. She might be waving from the car and smiling at you. Or she is going round and round around the pole in the metro and having fun and asking her mother or father all sorts of questions and one look at her makes you smile – at her innocence, at her curiosity, at her cute way of asking things and her care-free childhood. And sometimes just her smile will bring a smile to your face and will make you forget your day’s trouble and your life’s tension.
And, I believe, that is the essence of life. The elixir which keeps us all young and happy.
If a single child in the metro can do this, imagine having one at home or in the neighborhood. There is always some hustling around the house, voices of laughter, scolding and sometimes crying. Hundreds of memories are made everyday and some of them stay with us for lifetime, making us smile even when the child grows up or is not near.
When they are infants we try to make them speak, “Say Mumma” or “Say Papa” etc. When they become old enough to speak and chatter all day long we try to make them quiet. Taking their little finger in hands and teaching them how to walk and one day, when they finally start walking without our help, a sense of over joy is felt. Experiencing pain ourselves if something causes pain to the child. These are some of the memories you remember for a lifetime, if you are lucky enough to experience them. And that’s why it’s said that one child can make the entire house happy.
So whenever you see a child in the metro or anywhere else and she is smiling at you, forget your troubles for a minute, and just smile back at her. Because she doesn’t understand the tensions and troubles of life. She just understands happiness and smiling. And if you have a child at home or in the neighborhood then try and take out five minutes in your entire day and go meet her and play with her. Those five minutes will relax you much more than any movie or television show of yours might.
Note: The she mentioned above has been intentional. Since we have become so habitual of reading and using ‘he’ everywhere for any general purpose or example, I thought it might be good to bring some change. Let’s not forget, ‘she’ is equally important as ‘he’, after all a ‘he’ takes birth or gets his existence from a ‘S(HE)’.
Leave a Reply