Dabbling with innocence June 24, 2008
You never know where your travels may take you. Even it its a walk to your neighbourhood store. You never know where life may drop a few beads of honey for you to lick and savour. Maybe a conversation. A smile. A handshake. Or just the view as you walk by.
Whenever I come back home during my vacations, I always go hiking on the dam built on a small river, the Banas, near to the University campus. Located in quiet and seemingly untouched corner of Mother Nature’s lap, the scenery is meant to be savoured and drunk completely.
Its a scenic beauty with breath-taking mountains that seem to play hide-and-seek, the fog assisting it in every way. Rocks and boulders relaxing above one another as if they don’t care a damn about the world. Crystal clear water with a conscience even clearer. As if little drips of nature’s innocence are sprinkled all over. The dam built with strong concrete standing guard over the child that nature is and keeping a paternal warm vigilance at night with street lights shining as small lighted matchsticks. You just sit their gaping at the enigmatic intercourse of natural beauty and man’s endeavour.
This evening I just cycled my way on the road telling myself that I’ve gotta get back home soon. So, just some blissful moments of solitude and then back. As soon as I reached the clearing and climbed up onto the huge balustrade of the dam, I saw that the play of the cotton-like clouds and the mountains had begun. And then I heard some babbling behind. People! Well, so much for my time alone!
I was pondering whether to leave as its not gonna be worth. But decided to stay. And, then, I saw a man cushioned between two tiny tots, brothers perhaps, on a bicycle. He made his way up to the balustrade and the children climbed up. The father started walking around taking in the scene. The children stayed together chattering aimlessly. And, then I heard the younger one saying, “Don’t you wish you could fly. Oh! How I wish I could just take a huge jump from here, cross the river and land on the mountains! Like Krissh and Superman!!”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it and turned around. The small one was gaping hungrily at the mountains. A small face with spectacles too big for his face stringed on both handles in case it fell. Mouth drawn wide open. All front teeth missing. The elder one a ‘little more’ mature, quieter and, probably, playing the elder brother.
I started talking to them. The family had just shifted a few days back. The father was an officer in the BSF of India and his battalion had just been posted here after their stint in Punjab. We talked about the tourist spots near around. The rain. The weather.
The small boy’s words had a strange sense of wonder as he talked about everything around. As if every small stone, every drop of water was so special and so great a thing as to be stared at and appreciated as wonder. It dawned on me that how as children we too appreciated every small thing around. Man’s creation or Nature’s. It did not matter. What mattered was that it surprised us! Made us want to know more! Want to feel more!
The younger one led me to a part of the balustrade where someone had drawn a heart with two names when the cement had been wet. He just wowed at it in wonder. And asked me what it was. Well, its just a symbol of a heart indicating love. But, he made me notice stuff which I had long since stopped looking at. It made me wonder how much we take for granted. As if nothing, whether natural or material, matters much to us. At least to our eyes. Do we walk with our eyes closed or are we accustomed to work with our eyes closed?
I asked the elder one his name. He said, “Pankaj”. I asked him whether he knew what it meant. He promptly replied, “The lotus flower”. The younger got excited. He pronounced, “My name is Rahul. Do you know what it means?” I smiled. I did not. I said, “It means you are Shah Rukh Khan”. His eyes turned big. Almost bursting with happiness. “Really?” I said Yes.
It was dusk. I could barely see his face. Neither could he see mine with the breeze playing the locks all over my face. He said, “Goodbye”. I smiled back. Waved happily.It felt good. Just doing a ‘Goodbye’ with waving my hand when I was used to just a cold ‘See ya!’.
Has life become so mechanical? So automatic? So push-of-a-button? Look around. Do you smell freshness of life or staleness of trudging on with life?
Siddhartha ![]()




