Happy Children's Day!

Happy Children’s Day! Yes, today is Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday, also celebrated as Children’s Day. The reason being that Chacha Nehru loved kids! Now who does not love kids? They are small, cute, look good in almost everything (even when they are chubby), can eat anything, anytime, have people to take care of them and love them always, are guided and easily forgiven… the question that I pose here today is whether you like being a child?

Just ask yourself, when was the last time you got wet in the rain and enjoyed it? When the last time you rolled down a grass slope, stayed up all night reading novels, watching movies not looking at the watch once? With age, it’s the outer self that grows old. The human mind has immense capacity to stay young forever. According to Hinduism, the human mind is the only immortal thing; making it timeless and ageless.

I met a friend of mine and her toddler yesterday and just realized how quickly young ones grow, how much more they know and how quickly they grasp things. It was amazing how at a tender age of 1.5 years, this little one was able to understand a lot of our conversation. His hand, eye co-ordination was very good, (we were busy playing with a tennis ball) and his movements were swift for that age!

Today’s children are tomorrow’s future, and every parent (on the micro level) and every nation (on the macro level) should invest in them properly. They will be what you want them to be: Intelligent, Innovative, Creative, Dangerous, Crass, Uncouth, Educated, Literate, Responsible…

It’s in our hands to teach them to lead a good life, full of moral and ethical values. They will after all learn from us. Let them inherit good values, from our generation and not a scheming mind full of scandals, scams, strikes, riots, murders, terrorism, ugly fights, and wars.

Let’s give them hope; hope for a better, enlightened future. Let’s give them the basic rights: right to education, and to vote freely.  Let’s “Heal the world and make it a better place…”