THE PERILIOUS JOURNEY OF GROWING-UP
“Dismiss thoughts of good, bad, right, wrong,
success, failure – be spontaneous.”
Joshua L. Goldberg
One
evening, I was returning from work… It was around 6.30, and I was especially
tired on that day… Two more long-distance zoom sessions still awaited after
reaching home… As it was a rush-hour for our building lift, when I sneaked in,
it was already packed with people returning from their duties, some elderly men
and women returning after their daily walk… Just when the lift door was about close,
two little boys – probably about age 9 or 10 – got in. There was no place;
still, they didn’t care, nor did any of us , the so-called ‘elders’ who were
weight-conscious…. We knew, that the lift would happily take few kilos of additional weight…
So, as the lift started
taking us up, the two little friends - one, quite chubby and heavier in size holding
a bat in his hand, the other, a lean, little sardar – continued their animated conversation…
They seemed least bothered – rather oblivious – about the dumb, self-conscious,
adults in the lift, gripped by the mental brake - ‘What will others think about
what I say?’…
Yes, for all of
us, in that overcrowded lift, these two boys provided the much-needed breath of
fresh air… “The little sardar, who apparently went to a state-board school, was
excitedly telling about his P.T. periods (the good-ole Physical Training) and
their P.T. teachers… The little sumo, who apparently went to an ‘international
school’, proudly boasted about his school’s ‘Physical Fitness’ sessions and excellent
coaches. The conversation was flawless, spontaneous and entertaining… It had
lit up our otherwise dull faces. On the fifth floor, while getting out of the
lift, I playfully pumped the soft, swollen belly of the little sumo who was
narrating to his friend (and, unwittingly, to the rest of us) about Physical
Fitness provided in his school…
Well, they were two
little building-friends, who went to different schools. What helped them gel
well was what had helped the rest of us, too, gel so well when we were of their
age… Spontaneity.
As we outgrow out
childhood, we lose that spontaneity… We become more ‘self-conscious’ –
constantly analyzing, judging, mind-reading, guessing, improvising etc. … These
are the adult-preoccupations!
“Too much improvisation
leaves the mind stupidly void,” says Victor Hugo…
Last
evening was one more tiring day for me… After reaching home, I was to hold two
more long-distance zoom sessions. A sudden thought began to prompt me… “Hey,
take your wife and go for a nice Malwani restaurant… Forget about your
scheduled two sessions, forget about your new diet regime, your disciplined dinner at sunset, forget about the food that
is already cooked at home – just go… Just enjoy…. Just the way those little building
friends – the little sumo and the lean, little sardar… Yes, just go without worrying about health or
wealth, or ‘What my students or their parents may think?’ etc,…
I heeded to that
bachhas’ voice inside… sent a message to my long-distance students, and off
went my wife and I for an amazing Malwan experience!
“All growth is
leap in the dark, ” I remembered what Henry Miller had said…
And, this morning, Nachiket (my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, who lives in America with his family) shared on FB the latest sketch by Juju, his little daughter (I have used it along the title of this Blog)
(Nachiket with his wife, Supriya, and two girls)
I instantly fell in love with the banner on
the ship Juju had sketched: ‘The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey’…
Frankly, I have no clue about what that society
and its journey were all about… Yet, I could see the connection…
Who knows where Juju or the two little kids in our lift will land in life?
How I long to reclaim that mysterious fountain of joy, which seems to have been jettisoned – yes, somewhere along this perilous journey of growing up!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic’s:: 1. Little Juju/Nachiket 2. Pixabay.com
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