What a child imagines and what an adult remembers

I did write about this many years ago in an old blog and it was perhaps read by less than five people. So I thought I will give it another shot.

I often wonder what goes on in a child's mind. It's very hard for us adults to actually fathom how a child perceives the world with a limited yet fast-growing knowledge about his surroundings.

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I once read a children's poem by Sukumar Roy, the famous Bengali children's author and father of Satyajit Ray, the movie director, about how a baby mouse felt when it first opened its eyes and saw the light of the world for the first time and how he asked questions to his mother in wondrous astonishment.

Child psychologists and doctors would perhaps have a much better understanding of what mix of fantasy and reality intertwines to create the individual reality of a child. They would have a much better understanding of the questions that form in a child's mind when the first sparks of understanding and wonder start to ignite.

I claim no knowledge or expertise in this field. All I can do is think about it, maybe read a bit and then go back to whatever I do to grind through my adult days.

Everyone seems to remember a few flitting glimpses from very early in life, a few thoughts or some visions. The visions seem to be remembered in very old film footage; grainy, faded technicolor, spots appearing here and there as the film rolls forward.

But I will not share those visions as those are almost impossible for me to describe. I am no Charles Dickens writing David Copperfield to be able to put into words so beautifully the first few memories a child remembers.

All I can share are some weird ideas from my childhood which I still remember.

The idea of school

I seem to remember what my idea of what a school from before I had joined one. I was three years old or younger when my parents started discussing which school to admit me into.

I vaguely remember them talking about me going to school and how they would buy me a bicycle when I grew up and I would ride to school on my own. From these conversations, I somehow figured that a school must be a place where you went on a bicycle and once you are there, you start farming. The image in my mind was of an Indian farmer wearing a traditional dhoti and working on a piece of land.

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Imagine my surprise when reality transpired in due course and I was made to wear my sky blue shirt and navy blue trousers, with a navy blue tie squeezing my neck. My dreams of becoming a farmer died on my first day in school.

Bigger questions about the world and the universe

I was always of the scientific mind, inquisitive, in the quest for knowledge and understanding of the universe. Like the ancient philosophers, one question which bothered me was very important and quite fundamental as I saw the world.

I assume now that I had figured that everything rested on top of something. A pen rested on a book, the book rested on the table, the table rested on the floor which was part of the house, and the house rested on earth.

So logically, the question would come to any scientific mind:

on what does the earth rest?

I am sure my hypothesis or explanation, whatever you decide to call it was as ingenious as any other explanation you would find in world mythology.

I figured that our planet rests on the top of a flat-topped high-rise.

You see? Don't you think it's plausible? Check the illustration of how this works out, painted using Microsoft Paint by the adult me.

If you do not agree to this, I would request you to share irrefutable proof that this is untrue or impossible!

This is the best of my ideas which I remember. I don't think there is anything better which I can recollect. But before I sign-off, I will share one last story.

Bir-ball

Birbal was a famous character who was part of the court of the great Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. My story is not about him but his namesake who was a very old fellow in our neighborhood.

I had never seen him as he was too old to come out frequently I think, but I had a nanny who used to tell me scary stories about him to make me eat vegetables. I, however, always imagined him as a football (soccer for my American readers).

You may laugh but think about it.

What guy named Bir-ball would not look like a football? And of course, no person in his right frame of mind would roam around naked, like a football does. So I always imagined Bir-ball to be a football covered by a kerchief.

One day I came to know he had died, so I was waiting on our porch for the funeral procession to pass by without my mother knowing about it. Hindu funeral processions don't use coffins and the body used to be carried on a bamboo frame on the shoulders during those days.

Imagine my shock on seeing my first dead body (from a distance of course) and finding out that Birbal did not at all look like a football covered by a kerchief.

That's about all for today, I guess I have written enough crap for you guys to digest in one sitting.

Share your thoughts, and especially share proof if you do not agree with my position on where our planet rests.

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