Innocence
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
William
Blake
Innocence of a child goes deeper than ignorance. The mysterious imagination and expression of a child is difficult to capture – more so, if you are an adult. It is rather easier to say what innocence is not than what it is. I have my own particular “collection of innocence” when my two years old nephew, Arjun, visited and stayed with me in the last two months of 2015.
Innocence of a child goes deeper than ignorance. The mysterious imagination and expression of a child is difficult to capture – more so, if you are an adult. It is rather easier to say what innocence is not than what it is. I have my own particular “collection of innocence” when my two years old nephew, Arjun, visited and stayed with me in the last two months of 2015.
I recount fond memories in a style that he probably would
have expressed by himself:
Understand what I say....
My vocabulary is limited, but I can juggle them well to make
myself heard and understood. When I say, Kakakaa – it
means a car! I have noted you and mom literally flying round
supermarket
aisles so that I don’t see toys compartment. But,
would you appreciate that I am crying out for Kakakaa – it’s
just that I wanted to add a few more to my collection of hundreds. If I do
manage to escape your cleverness and reach a toy section, I can see your
displeasure when I select expensive Kakakaa or when I
ask loudly for Pepepee
or Buwabuwa. Don’t get me wrong, I cannot twist my tongue to say Plane or
Motorbike– Pepepee
and Buwabuwa
are easier! To call Judy as Judy is complicated. I call her Jutoo. When I say
“tee”, I am asking you to open things for me, ok? And, what’s there to laugh?
Cannot you see, I am simplifying things. Sometimes I simplify things to the
extent that people should realize some things are just better categorised and
known by one name. For me, be it a giraffe or a zebra or an elephant, they are
all “Bhau bhau”.
I have another wonder vocabulary that people fancy so much – “goong”. “Ka
goong” means car is lost, “Maami goong” means Maami is lost, “buff goong” means
brush is lost – that’s all so simple. There are times when I get annoyed,
especially when you understand but pretend ignoring me completely. You don’t
let me stir food while you are cooking. I plead to you with my “phis, phis,
phis” but you behave so arrogant and ignore my please, please! The other day I
learnt a new vocabulary - “tirty, tirty” and
I got so amused when it took a while for you to understand that I was actually
saying “dirty, dirty”.
Baby baby…
Baby baby is equivalent to my “thego”. For anyone who is under
the age of 15 is a baby for me. If our neighbour’s 5 months kid is crying in
the middle of night, I scratch my mom’s elbow and ask her “baby baby?” My mom
just refuses to bear it for me and she shouts at me that I better sleep. She
cannot appreciate the fact that “I am concerned about all the babies in this
world and all the time”. The other day I met a beautiful 14 year old girl in a
party. The moment I called her baby, all the heads around me turned and they
all burst into a laughter. I gave a mild grin to myself but ignored them
completely and continued talking to her by making the best use of my
vocabularies. I have not been able to convince others in general that they
better enjoy the fact that I fancy babies, girl babies in particular. Since I
have explained it now, I leave it upto your judgement to consider it in future
communication! I recall it vaguely that once our 3 year old neighbour came to
see me and just as I had said “baby baby”, my mom sneaked me through her eyes
and took me in for a bath. So vulnerable I am to “bata bata” that I completely
forgot about the baby and started bathing Kakakaa and Pepepee. That’s my mom’s
rather cunning strategy of diverting me off things when my “Nag factor” sets
in! Don’t get me wrong here – these are my mom’s tried and tested approaches.
She is double the smart than I am.
My intonation….
In a bid to simplifying things and sometimes to butter up my
demands, I vary the tones of my voice. I normally call my aunt Sabi. But, when
I want her to feed me “Ayise”, I call her Sab..i…ya.. She gets flattered by the
tone of my voice and will give me Ayise even when my mom gives a
nasty stare. I remain excited of things all the time, especially in the
nights. I often imagine that my mom and aunt are upto some fun that they don’t
want me to be part of. So, I try to keep my eyes wide open even when my mind
tells me to go sleep. I don’t want to miss all that excitement if anything
happens at all. It’s during those times that I show my greatest love to mom.
From “maami”, she becomes ma..mi…ya. Sometimes all that sweet intonation goes
in vain – my mom refuses to believe my love for her at that time. Her big eyes
even get bigger and poor me I try asking for Sabi, Jutoo kind of excuses, but
at the end, I have to go to sleep anyway! 