The end of Innocence

“Gather around children …let me tell you a story. A tale of kings and warriors brave. Of beautiful princesses and scheming witches. Of a glorious land …far far away.” When I was a child I loved listening to stories. It was something you could bribe me with. I was told to be a good girl and finish my food quickly- if I did I would be told a story. My favourite ones were those that involved royalty, though I was also partial to the ones in which animals seemed to have long conversations with each other in human languages. I loved listening to them when I was about to go to sleep. They gave me a reason to dream. Whatever the subject might be, I was always an eager listener and badgered my grandfather to tell me more and more. He always obliged and I gleefully immersed myself in a world of imagination. A world where nothing needed to make sense to make you happy. But somehow it always did. It made sense to the little girl who loved to live in this world.

As time went on, I left the tales of childhood behind and started paying more attention to growing up. There were classes to attend, exams to write, courses to complete. No time left for childish yarns. But those tales will always hold a special meaning for me, will always have a special place in my heart.

You know, I noticed something. My cousins and other children some years younger to me didn’t share my love for stories. They just didn’t have the time or the inclination. They had the TV and the computer to amuse them. And video games. Even books took a backseat when compared to New Age entertainment.

I will call these children unlucky. They can never know what it is to sit down and listen to someone introduce you to new people, new villages and cities, new ideas, new worlds and new galaxies- while you haven’t even moved an inch. You’ll say – that’s what the Internet does, or the TV. Yes, that is what they do. But have you thought about it this way? The internet, while it has opened a new vista of information to all of us, has severely undermined the power of imagination. The TV has brought the world inside our homes. That’s why children don’t go out to their backyards. All of this has put an end to childish innocence. That’s what’s wrong with them. A child is supposed to know what curiosity is. What it is to discover new things. Even if that includes how many types of bugs infest their gardens or how many fruits are on the tree across the street. But no. Today’s competitive world expects children to be geniuses. Each and every one of them. The right of enjoying childhood in the true sense of the term is being denied them. They are being forced to grow up before their time. That is what we have become.

Its not for me to decide whether its for the better or not. I’m just someone who doesn’t agree with it. That’s my side of the story and I’m sticking to it.