Kids and their curiosity

“Who will eat these biscuits?”, the little girl asked her mom at the check-out counter of a nearby grocery shop. “Your papa likes them with tea, na, now give it to bhaiya”, she said pointing towards the boy at the counter. “And who will eat these?”, came the follow up question followed by another, “Can I eat them too, are they sweet or salty?”.. Little kids, and their knack of asking questions. I guess it is their way of understanding how this world works..

But standing right behind them in the checkout line, the next thing I saw was the hand of her mom snatching away the biscuit and namkeen packets from the little girl so that they can be billed. “You talk too much, don’t you see we are already late, now keep quite and don’t touch anything”, screamed the mom, clearly frustrated and eager to get out as soon as possible.

Ten more items later, the billing was done, and the mom hurried, with the shopping bags in one hand, and the hand of her little daughter in the other. The girl must have been thinking “What is the hurry, today is Saturday, an off for everyone?”

Obviously she is unaware of the fact that when we humans grow up, we all find it difficult to really enjoy what each moment has to offer. We are all too caught up in the rat race, either thinking about the past or the future, but not about the present. In the above incident, the mom might very well be thinking of her daughter’s school admission, or what to cook for her at dinner, but didn’t have the time to answer the questions which are very much a part of her growing up. We all have been, and are like this mother at different times.

How simple life is as kids? Do what you like. If you don’t know something, ask questions. You don’t know whether the questions sound silly, or no worries. You laugh with others if you see them laughing at you without getting conscious, so no worries again. Even if you realize you’ve done a mistake, you say ‘sorry’ and move on like nothing happened in the first place. You are more interested in what is going to happen the next minute, rather than what happened one hour ago, or earlier today, or yesterday, or years ago. You can get excited by little things like a biscuit or the colors of the your dress, and your expression can change from a smile to a frown to again a smile within five seconds.

But alas, I am a grown up now, and maybe I am not supposed to talk, think or write like this.