Dil To Bachha Hain Ji

It was the usual Sunday morning… I woke up lazily around noon, feeling good about a day of nothingness that stretched invitingly ahead of me. There’s something about Sundays that you love no matter how old you get. It’s one of those parts of childhoods that you never quite leave behind. You can become your own boss and work on your own time, but Sunday never stops being sacrosanct.

With this feeling of utter peace, I started my usual Sunday morning routine. The toothbrush was gleefully ignored and I plonked on the sofa and switched on the TV. One of my favourite movies, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, was playing. Soon I was engrossed in it. I’ve seen the movie many times, but that particular day, a dialogue stayed behind with me. As Hrithik irritatedly told Farhan to grow up and act his age, I couldn’t help thinking about this ‘Bade ho jaao’ dialogue that I’ve heard countless number of times. And the question in my mind is, why? Why this obsessive, compulsive need to grow up? What is the big deal about growing up anyway?

When you think about it, what have we achieved by doing this ‘growing up’ thing? As a child, the idea of being big and important was wildly exciting and wickedly delicious. Back then it felt like grown-ups were having all the fun. And childhood felt like the dues you had to pay before life could become one long party. Every time my mother fed me something unappealing or admonished me with her usual, “If you don’t eat properly, how will you grow up?” I consoled myself thinking that soon it would be my time. I was in a tearing hurry to live the grown-up life.

But now that I’m living that life, I yearn for those childhood days… Of leaping first and thinking second, of taking risks, of grabbing a dog’s tail just to see what would happen, of not asking questions because I was afraid of the answers… Because quite frankly that’s all that growing up seems like to me. The myth has broken, and broken hard.

As an adult, I can confidently say that the world would have been a far more beautiful, uncomplicated, uncorrupted and peaceful place if we hadn’t grown up. Children inspire love, adults create war. Childhood is about togetherness, growing up is about creating boundaries of religion, caste and creed. As children we don’t think of hoarding money, playing political games, owning arms or going to war. These are all things we were taught when we became mature and grown-up. We didn’t know how to deceive as kids because we weren’t ashamed of our actions, we learnt to lie as adults, because we don’t have the courage to face consequences. Children are brave—they invent and create. It’s adults who fear—the unknown and the unexplored.

As children, each experience was an adventure. We didn’t do things to prove a point or to move ahead in the rat race. We did things because they were fun. Because they gave us pleasure. All great inventors kept the child inside them alive till the very end. It was their childlike curiosity that helped them embark on each new journey without the baggage of previous failures.

 I wish I had that ability to be fascinated by life each day. I wish I could feel each emotion in my heart in its purest form—without rationalising feelings in my head first…

The pressure to grow up, settle down and take our places in the world order is all around us. The prototype of a responsible adult is dangled in front of us relentlessly, until we give in and join the queue. But every once in a while, I’m tempted to step out of the line and hand the reins to the child in me. As a child, my most prized possession was my cricket ball. It was my most favourite toy. But when I lost it, I did what every child would do—go an buy myself a new one. I wish I could simplify my life and my relationships like that once again.

I don’t want the child inside me to die. Some days, he comes out and plays on his own. Other days, I have to fight for him. The good news is that kids are resilient. I think somewhere inside each of us still lurks that little guy who is just waiting to come out and play. As a child, it was always a fight to get me to brush my teeth. And while the adult in me might make me brush every morning and every night, every Sunday, the child overrides reason and logic and does what he wants. Akhir dil toh bachha hai ji… Isse baccha hi rehne do.