Sunday, August 13, 2006

Bliss of Innocence

On the eve of our Nation's 59th Independence Day, I would like to narrate a small story.

My son had a buddy at his school, during his Kindergarten days. He was neither from his class; neither did he ride the same bus to school. They just happen to share a bench during one of the summer camp class for a day, but it was enough to bond them as friends.

Next few months, my son would amuse us with stories and adventures with his new friend. They must have shared and traded toys and books, made plans for weekend sleepover and all the little things that sounded fun for these friends.

Around six months into their friendship, my son’s friend had to move with his parents to another city. It was a painful time for my son and probably even for his friend. My son must have asked me lots of questions and nothing we did seem to cheer him for few days after his friend had departed.

Now this would seem like a familiar story for growing kids nothing unusual, except that the friend was of Pakistani origin.

I always wonder how their interaction would have been if they had not met in a distant land and they were not in their age of innocence.

We may have been liberated to physical slavery imposed on us, but we have been bonded in to a religious and ideological slavery. Meanwhile, I wait for a Mahatma to lead another liberation movement.

5 comments:

Movie Mazaa said...

Wow! Brilliantly said. u know something Deepak, I have thought the same regarding the Blogging community as well. I have ventured across to blogs by Pakistanis, and have ended up being friends with several of them.

I guess it all comes down to this, at the end of it all. A human reaching out to another one. As simple and blissful as that!

Deepak D Jadhav said...

Yeah but as adults we carry scars and we cannot easily forget the hurt.

Dawn said...

Hi dOne, this story really touched also because I do have pakistani friends and believe me its wonderful to have them. I come from Canada and I made most of my pakistani friends from there.
What I felt is that its the media and the politics which seperates otherwise everyone is part of that East India...yes this is what every pakistani that I met would say after sep 11th.
I think if we consider 1947 - then its the 60th Happy Independence day
Cheers

Deepak D Jadhav said...

@Dawn
I agree with you, we all have our own perception of world and sometime we confine ourself within those limits and fail to cross over and make friends.

But then our experience also makes us cautious about whom we want to trust and how much we want to trust.

A child doesn't have any baggage and because of his innocence he is able to go that extra mile to make friends, while as adults we fail.

As individuals we might have crossed borders to reach out to friends, but collectively as nations we are barricaded behind fences of religion and history.

@rChU said...

Honestly D, liberation starts within us...no need to tell u that for sure...but strangely....situations around us make us more n more vulnerable n hence dont help us forget the gruesome facts of the past(even present) n thats were if u ask me i wud still have that lil feeling of insecurity to communicate to that part of the world....maybe its "too much of knowledge is dangerous" thing... but then thats the beauty of being a kid....nothing matters but the acceptance itself....