"Kids are funny little things, eh?"
Indeed, friend of mine, they are!
Who else can be so, so... kidlike?! So, amazingly kidlike!
It was an unusual day, considering how 'outings' had been going; or how they hadn't been going. It was the first outing in weeks! Although, for some reason, which I am absolutely sure of, I did not feel like going out. I ended up going out, anyway.
There was a nagging feeling at the back of my head: a constant worry that I was not able to place my finger on. Three of my best friends were my company and yet, peaceful thought and cheerful smiles seemed to be distant. Not unreachable, just distant!
That evening, there were doughnuts and pasta and Vada Pavs; if you leave the pasta out, the other two should have lessened the distance by a lot! That belief seemed like a mirage. The constant worry persisted, undaunted, unaffected.
We walked to this shop, nearby. It was a tiny shop selling toys, stationary and plastics. While the three of them looked at the things to buy, I walked to a side and looked at all the toys in the basket. I recognized some of them- remade and given a more modern design and effect. There were days when I played with their prototype models. Those were the days when constant worries were about toys, ice-creams and chocolates that would only reach me if the parents nodded their heads up and down. That day, the constant worry was about something I didn't even know. The mysteries of time? The strangeness of foreign lands? The unfamiliarity of new faces? No idea!
The other three had begun to walk out of the shop; they bought a bottle. As I turned, a kid, no more than three or four years ran into the shop and stopped right in front of me. He looked this way and that and it seemed like he had found what he was looking for. The kid was like the glow of a firefly, serene and graceful! He looked right into my eyes and threw his hands up. I understood this gesture, picked him up and held him in my hand. As soon as he got into my arms, he looked away. His eyes turned towards the thing he was looking for: that squeaky ball in a basket he was not able to reach. I took him closer to the basket. He took a ball into his hand and observed it like a miner observing a freshly unearthed gem. The kid had no worries.
His mother came along, seconds later and she saw him in my arms, holding a ball in his hand. She laughed and asked the kid to say thank you. The kid replied "thnkoo" without even bothering to look at me. His eyes were made for the ball. Then, his mother said, "Put him down. There is no other way he is going to get off" and smiled at him. I put him down and walked away, with a smile.
The worries were now distant and the smiles were hugging me. The kid had shown me something I had never observed, before. He showed me innocence in ignorance and arrogance. He told me that the world would end if he did not look at the ball the way he did. I heard what I had to.
There was innocence in his ignorance and arrogance. The world would have ended, that day, if the kid had not looked at the ball the way he did.
