Of Children

I was alone at my place, when there was a knock at the door. Immediately it dawned on me that suddenly I had this encumbering and needless responsibility of entertaining this unknown person lurking behind the door as there was no one in the house. ‘Come in’, I said, although I didn’t mean it and there she stood - my cousin sister, peering in through the half open door. I faked a smile and forced a cheerful ‘hello’ which upset my vocal cord. I cleared my throat. She reciprocated in a similar manner largely ignorant of my discomfort and distress. And then there was the silence – that awkwardness which starves for immediate remedy. Being the elder person in the arena, I managed some questions in order to end my discomfiture. I was least interested in the answers. Yet, with the aid of some superhuman abilities, I deciphered that she was in the fourth standard. I asked the young girl to sit down and asked her if she’d like to eat or drink something. In other words I became hospitable, hankering onto every demand she would make in order to save myself from the awkwardness looming in the room! 

Now, the thing is, I don’t like kids. I know, this is an impatient conclusion and a gross over generalisation and it reveals more about me than about them, but, I can’t help it. It’s not that I hate them – no, that would be saying too much, unnecessarily. I guess they are fine in the parks, playing ball or with their dolls, with their whole scaled down He-Man family or whatever it is that they play with these days. They are bearable when they are under strict adult supervision and then sometimes, during these exceptional occasions they might seem adorable, cherubic even, that is, from a safe distance of about a hundred metres. However, if you ask me, I am fine without them.
I never ask for the happiness people say that comes along with a cradle full of children; I never seek the smile that warmed the Selfish Giant’s heart nor do I want to hear the laughter that proves God’s omnipotence. No, I am fine without all these for I am already happy in my world inhabited by adults, adults who are not bent on bringing God’s wonderful creations into this already over-crowded planet. If they are so wonderful, God should keep them to himself; after all doesn’t he only give and give? 

Now all that I have said, is largely and mainly for and about myself. If I offend anyone with this ranting, think only that all of it is merely an exercise on expression. If anyone finds their feelings resembled here, we are friends! 

They irk me – the children. They look at me, and I am suddenly at a loss; and when they expect things from me, I am thoroughly defeated. Their eyes have that unnerving character that strips me of every covering, and before I know it well enough myself, I am stranded naked. Their hands that fling forward every time they see an adult, is constantly imploring to be saved, as if that adult’s priority is to abandon everything else and run to those longing arms. To some that grand feeling of saving another soul, of being a heroic saviour may be appealing and might add another purpose to their lives but to me it is a responsibility I’d run away from, as fast as I can. With a child, you need to be a child; laughing and talking gibberish, reducing the size of your movements almost like a disabled monkey - All this to force a smile, or squeeze a laugh out of that otherwise brooding thing. With a child, one needs to be trivial, find joy in a simple collapse of an erected set of plastic blocks. With a child, one needs to dim the light of the brain to almost a negligible amount. When with a child, in the process of becoming another child, what one actually sees in the reflection is a Neanderthal. Frankly, it’s too much pretence, too much effort. 

The above narrated episode, about the cousin, need not proceed further. It only served to evoke, enhance and organise certain anomalous feelings finally transforming into this piece of ‘expression’. This writing is not directed to any particular child. Anyway by the time a child fully comprehends all that I have said, he/she will be of an amiable age. And parents offended can simply keep their children away from my sight. That is all.