Childhood in Defense colony, in the capital city of India was an undilutedly joyous time. But when I ask myself what it was that constituted all of this simplicity and joy- a few activities rush to mind : cycling around the colony which was free of vehicles most times; falling and dusting myself off and getting on with it; climbing the mulberry tree in our tiny garden and chucking its fruits into an old sheet my mother knew not existed. When friends from around our colony got together to spend the evening hours playing hopscotch on the street that ran along our homes, it was sheer bliss. Devising new ways of enacting what is now excitingly called ‘Street plays’ was unfussy, and all done verbatim. Later our theatrical endeavours would be presented to the parents, on a makeshift stage. Best time of our lives, truly the very best was it. The memory of it fills me with an unnamed longing- memories of its windswept plains transmit a freshness that’s perhaps gone forever.

It was also inventive, this childhood; fresh food crowding our tables and kids of all ages could dash in and out of each other’s homes, picking at pickles, breads or chapatti rolls without a thought for etiquette; childish patter resounded, and laughing loudly for no reason (other than at a mate who’d been clumsy). What was this magical element in a childhood that has disappeared beyond a horizon barely visible? Is it because we’ve raised so much dust that it has clouded it? Have we grown beyond what nature meant us to be, simple and uncomplicated? Yes, it is evident and more and more so.

The world we now inhabit is both strange and pithy. It is material and feeds into our greed. The more we have, the more we want- and it is less and less of anything meaningful.

Our children are the cause of much anxiety while they are labeled as dyslexic, or have ADHD, or could be hypo manic or borderline bipolar. Their own anxiety and anxiousness is causing all sorts of unheard of maladies. In turn, we are rushing to psychologists and psychiatrists. It is a fabulous day for the helpers of the differently-abled. We’ve lost sight of the hills and prairies. There are too many hybrid cars around, along with the gift of hybrid disorders.

We are breathing in technology, and breathing out state-of-the-art arrogance and egoism. Names now roll off our tongues with ease- names of international schools and their curriculum, and names of disorders that we did not then know, existed in a time when life was utterly, sweetly uncomplicated. The world we inhabit is turning on its head and knows not which path it is now hurtling down.

I’ve often pinched myself and wondered whether I haven’t moved stations- from the world of my childhood, to an adult world, which bears no resemblance to the one I grew up in. What is this world? It is so disparate in its ethos that I fail to come to terms with it. My kids often questioned me about this childhood I speak of, and which world I have arrived from, when I recount stories of bare-feet gambols in parks and such like. They are both adults now, yet the reach of this distinctly tough childhood has left its mark on their souls as it were.

The millennial is happy, is she?

On my part, I’ve tried to be me, a product of a happy childhood with my kids, showed them it’s okay to not fret about one’s marks in a test or exam; we’ve tried to remain fun people and travelled with them to lands where the air still moves freely; we’ve continued playing board games. We’ve made efforts in imbuing all interactions with a lightness of being. It is not easy protecting both oneself and one’s offspring from the onslaught of ‘progress’, yet one can only keep trying to reach back, or into, a lost world of simplicity and joy.

Yet, the world we inhabit today, is driven by so much that remains strange to me, as I sit at my laptop, trying to make sense of my life- my world and inhibit those receptors that tend to get swallowed by it all- the glitz and the technology and the pace of disconnectedness. I hope to never turn into a stranger to myself above all- and continue to befriend strangers and turn them into friends. May this world always be too much with us- and not betray our humaneness.