The Misfits
In my early years at school, Children’s Day, to me, was basically the opposite of Teacher’s Day. The teachers all performed for us, and we’d cheer the loudest for our favourites, and we’d be amazed to see the strict ones loosening up a bit, and even the principal participating in all of it wholeheartedly. We didn’t have to wear the school uniform that day, and that was a big deal. We were treated to some good food, and we enjoyed a day of games, music and dance.
Growing up, even at 18, I remained a kid for a few people, and most of all, my neighbour — Auntyji, I call her — would always wish me, and take me out or give me a small gift, but the little gesture was still a celebration of the child in me.
The years in college were a blur of activities and then I got a job, and now I’m married. It’s like I suddenly woke up to see that I’m an adult.
Well, shit.
Now, my husband and I get each other as much as anyone could hope to be understood, but one of the few things about him that I can’t relate to is his peaceful acceptance of adulthood, while I constantly feel like a child trapped in a grownup body playing tiring grownup roles.
One of the biggest differences between childhood and adulthood is that while in the former, you are provided for and taken care of, in adulthood, you have to go from being responsible for yourself to begin with, to being the one who provides for and takes care of others. My problem, though, is not with the necessity of making myself useful. That, in fact, is quite satisfying.
What sucks is the disillusionment. Your rose-tinted glasses get shattered in slow motion and you can just sit there and watch. For a kid who genuinely believed in the goodness of all people, growing up to a warring world has not been pleasant. For a simple, endlessly curious mind, it has been very, very hard to adjust to a world of pretence and manipulations and judgements and know-it-alls full of this-is-how-it’s-done.
As a kid, I thought growing up was cool because it meant being able to make your own choices. What I couldn’t see then was the invisible weight of social expectations that adult decision-making is burdened with. Besides, never in my nightmares had I anticipated how often I would find adult life so extremely unfair.
Of course, the picture’s not all grim. I still have a good bunch of people around me who keep the life I share with them really, really simple, for whom I am really, really, really grateful. The people I am my truest self around, and those who are honest to me. The people who don’t judge. The people I share way too many laughs with, and tears, too. It helps to know that I’m not the only person trying to hold on to some good old innocence and honesty in this complex adult world.
The husband, of course, is the ideal — an individual who is able to keep his mind, heart and soul in place while still catering to the often mindless, often heartless, often soulless grownup world. Someday, I’ll get there, I hope, but until then, I can just express my solidarity with the disillusioned misfits, and wish them, because nobody else will, a happy Children’s Day.
