Motivators can feel low too

A young dashing fella about 14 years old, asked me on my visit to Goa in 2012. I was doing a workshop with one of slum schools there during my visit and he was one of the most interesting children I came across. I couldn't turn my back to his query.

The conversation started with a casual hi and how are you. When I answered I am fine, he instantly baffled me by saying, "I saw you crying sometime back. You are not fine."

Silent for a while, I decided to have a face to face with the child and told him, "I didn't know you noticed I was crying. But I am kind of low, upset, silent and not doing anything much today."

He looked at me for a while and then asked me, "would you like to take me for a small walk by the sunset?" I obliged.

As we walked in silence towards the sunset, he said after a while, "How can you feel low? You are so strong and motivate people all along the way." 

I looked at him and could feel the tears brimming up in my eyes. I wanted to hide my tears but didn't do so. The child looked at me, almost dumbstruck. He probably didn't except to see my tears.

After a silent pause, he held my hand with a firm grip and said, "it's okay. You don't have to say it now. Maybe some other time." I was certainly take aback by this kid's maturity and gained some composure by then. We walked in silence on the beach as the sun was setting.

I then told him, "Thank You for understanding. But you know what, we are all humans. A motivator too has feelings and can be in pain. I agree I always tell others to keep smiling through challenges, but I also tell them it's okay to cry. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to express our feelings and let go."

The child looked at me and smiled. I smiled back at him too. We sat there and watched the sunset and after sometime headed home.

He never needed to ask me anything after that for the rest of the days I was there. Whenever we met, we had the best conversations and lessons to learn from each other. Today, he's a grown up adult, well established in his life. We remain connected and have lots to share.

"Be blessed thy pain, if not for you, I would have never experienced the meaning of happiness and freedom."

pic courtesy (c)upal_rene, Goa, 2012

Let the Child in You Take Charge

A child raped. Forced into child labour. Forced into prostitution. Forced into drugs. Forced into violence. Forced into pregnancy. Forced into married. The list is never ending. The force is never stopping.

Solutions, laws are there, but the eradication of all these forceful activities against children globally are nowhere close by to stop. 

For each child, their childhood should be preserved. Their freedom. Their rights. Their innocence. But, each is denied in a large percentage globally and in our country too.

The real world should have a holistic ambiance for children to grow up with peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality, and solidarity. But the global scenario for the same gives a different picture which again unfortunately is real. Leaving apart the statistics and the countless researches and initiatives done on a constant basis to ensure a healthy life for a child, we do have a long long way to go.

In many parts of our country children are often deprived of education, right nutrition and care for a healthy and fulfilled life. They are forced to live a life that refuses to give them a space to grow and develop, denied of their right to survive or be raised with protection.

All these factors not only affects the society as a whole, but badly damages the child’s well being, mental and physical. To deny the fundamental rights of a child and rob them off their innocence itself it a heinous crime. But where does all this end? What are the solutions to this ever impending problem? Is there a day in the near future when we will children in the entire world living a healthy, happy and free life?

Well, to write of this or anything related to this on Children’s Day that is celebrated in India today is not to denote anything special. I write this on the eve of Children’s Day because it is important for all of us to remember that only by putting up balloons or cutting cakes in schools we are not celebrating the rights of children.

To celebrate each and every child, we need to ensure the fact that they are given their rights as children and future citizens of the world. 

It is important to remember and to set aside any other discrimination to ensure that each child indeed should and does celebrate his/her childhood. 

It is mandatory to give them access to education, good health, protection and all other aspects that contribute to their overall well-being.

I start the article with the darker side because that is the naked reality. Not to increase the negativity but in hope that each one of us take charge to change the way it is. 

To stand with every child. To give them freedom and to imagine and get a free sky to grow and explore themselves. 

Ending this article with the lines from Imagine by John Lenon - “Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky”.