Of Love and Childhood

Reading is my first love, travelling the second and except for long journeys on trains I seldom have had the opportunity to enjoy both together. There are a lot of books that make you cry, few that make you laugh and rare are the ones that make you travel just sitting anywhere – transport you through time to another age, another world, another being - till timelessness transcends reality.

Have you ever longed wishfully to go back in time to relive childhood? Has some fragilely vague memory ever unsuspectingly tugged at your heartstrings to stop you in your tracks? Is nostalgia your favourite pastime? Do you have sudden urges to indulge in juvenile playfulness? If yes, then you shall be delighted to discover The Little Prince authored by Antoine de Saint Exupery and To Kill a Mockingbird penned by Harper Lee. And those of you who amidst their breathlessly busy lives don’t have the time to travel back in time or have to resort to hunting out musty faded albums to aid recollection – do yourselves a favour and find these priceless books that I’ve had the good fortune to come across and read them and reread them, till every detail of your glorious careless days comes back to you in all vivid majesty.

An absolute feeling of joie de vivre and well-being takes over my being every time I read these books - every word is like a cobweb being removed from the timeworn corners of my mind and heart where the person I was as a child remains confined within prudence and maturity and all other shackles that most of us truss ourselves up with in the sad chronological progression of our lives. With every turning page I recall my age of intrepid innocence when I was ruled by no pretensions- where I could laugh and cry and love and express anger artlessly and yet be more invulnerable than now.

 Sample this personal favourite fragment of a conversation about their long-deceased mother between the protagonists- Scout and Jem, the inquisitive and vivacious siblings of To Kill a Mockingbird:

Scout: Was Mama pretty?
Jem: Uh, huh.
Scout: Was Mama nice?
Jem: Uh, huh.
Scout: Did you love her?
Jem: Yes.
Scout: Did I love her?
Jem: Yes

The heartwarming credulity with which Scout questions Jem about her own sentiments for her mother and even unquestioningly trusts his reply and other such conversations sprinkled throughout the book are what make it so unforgettable.

Reminisces of times when the ambiguities of life were not clear to me and yet convictions came easy and when I would stand up unembarrassed and unabashedly for the rights and indomitably condemn the wrongs, make my adult dilemmas seem so tiresome in comparison. And then, on some insomnia ridden night in the confines of the concrete matchbox that is now home I revert to childhood in those prints- live it a million times in a million ways but with the singular spontaneity, precocity and compassion that I search for so futilely now. And obliterate the acrid air and offensive masses of cement of the metropolis to see the clearest shining blue sky and breath the fragrant pollen ridden breeze of childhood and star gaze and ponder about where the universe ends and its numerous other mysteries.

Times that we live in are those of deplorable treacheries, inflated egos and insidious malice. I need to be reminded from time to time to be happy, to trust, to cast away worries, to be tickled by the silliest of things. I need to bewilder myself like the little prince with matters of consequence that no sensible grown-up would bother about. I need to liberate myself from superficialities of adulthood and touch the child within me. So would you believe me if I said you need to as well?