Essays

While beginning to write on my chosen subject, few lines of a song sung by Jagjit Singh come across my mind. They

are:

'Ye daulat bhi Ie to

Ye showrat bhi Ie lo,

Bhale chin lo mujse merijawaani,

Magar, mujko lauta do bachpan ka Sawan,

Who kaagaz ki kashti,

Who barish ka paani.'

These lines hold true to all of us who have crossed our beautiful days of childhood lost ourselves in world of matured adults.

Many times tears roll down from our eyes when we recall childhood days. Days when we desperately wished to become big. Days and night, we looked at mirror and talked to ourselves that when will we grow up? When we will sit, talk and walk like the elders? When will studies end? When we will go to office? When will we be able to wear papa's tie or mummy's saree or carry a purse like her? And many more such silly questions and wishes.

But today, when we have got whatever we wished in those days, we want now our old days of childhood back. Now,

our hearts crave for them.

We, being out of childhood, can now realize its essence. At that time, we hated being called 'A child'. We felt that children have many tensions and adults are free going and free from burden of studies. Adults have free will and they work and move according to their own wishes, whereas we children, are always dominated by our elders. We have to endure burden of school books, get up early in the morning to go to school, forcefully made to complete our boring homework, not allowed to freak - out with friends and much more childish nuisance. Examination was the most difficult part of the year when the only work was to study, study and only study. This was the time when we use to feel maximum asleep. We had to reduce our time of sleep and play Getting up early in the morning and going to school was the biggest tension. Crying and making false pretences for not going to school was a regular habit. And sometimes it use to click but many times we use to fail also. We could easily fool our mothers and blackmail, her emotionally to get our small desires fulfilled.

Sundays and Vacations were days of freedom, fun and enjoyment for us. There was loads of holiday homework to do but it was mainly meant for parents to put their brains at work. We never took responsibility for doing it ourselves.

But now we can realize that those gone childhood days were 'The Golden Era' of our lives. Those were days of innocence, simplicity, growing up loved, protected by our parents and elders. No worries and tensions. We were just concerned about our food and play.

Life was really beautiful and wonderful, with each new day full of new experiences of joy and fun. Full of energy, we use to run from one room to another, from one street to another creating amusement for people who looked at us. We were not bothered about anything but just about our play. We use to get excited when the clock rang, 5 pm, it was time to run out of the caged walls of home to the sky to meet our friend and play our stupid and silly games.

We never bothered about worries and tensions of our elders. We didn't have even time to think at it. We were busy in our little kingdom. If we had some tension, it was about marrying our dolls or pleading before parents to get the same toy my neighbour friend had. We were master of funny tricks and wonderful excuses. We knew how to tackle our demands.

Our elders often rebuked us at our mischiefs and naughty pranks but a little crying and wailing and we were back at

oar work.

Imitating heroes and heroine, acting and dreaming to be like the one day, used to be hot topic among friends. 'Ghar-Ghar' and 'Hide and Seek' were favourite of all. Cartoons were all time favourite. We had no interest in 'Saas-bahu' serials. They were meant for mummies and grannies.

It is a true saying that 'childhood is the best period in one's life'. We realize it only when we are adults. We can now feel how good it was to be a child. Adulthood is entering into a world of tensions and worries. It is full of greed, wands, desires, avarice, jealousy, hatred and lust. There is no pure love and happiness like children have. Childhood is innocent and naive whereas adulthood is all bad and evil. Adults are entangled in the materialistic world. We, as adults, need to learn a lot of lessons from children. We fight over petty things and even try to compete with our own friends. Whereas children know art of forgiving. They never keep ill will against anyone rather they forgive and move ahead. Adults are full of responsibility, they go on working hard to keep job, kids, home, spouse balanced together. They don't get time to relax and enjoy their lives.

Now, being matured and big, we regret the loss of those innocent and lovely days we have spent. We now long for those days which can never be brought back. Life is a perennial circle of birth, childhood, youth and old age. We all humans have to undergo this cycle. It is not in our hands to rewind or forward. What is left with us is the sweet and never forgetting, beautiful memories. So, PRESERVE