Oh God! Probably this is the last children’s day I have celebrated being a child(I’ll be 18 by Nov 27). Down the memory lane, children’s day has been full of cherishable and beautiful moments that can be treasured life-long. The innocence, purity of childhood is so unbelievable and so touching that we long for those days we spent as a child. Probably that’s the basic reason our Chacha Nehru loved children to a great extent. We hardly retain the charm growing as an elderly person. Our minds get polluted with unnecessary thoughts that lead into a mundane life. The ultimate purpose of life, honesty and truthfulness holds no value in this heartless society. People tell to move on with life but hardly anyone realizes what we are leaving behind. For now, let’s forget these harsh realities and spring back those moments of bliss during childhood..
Abdul Kalam’s statement that children can convert a nation from nothing to everything holds true to a great extent. Let’s spare a thought to think what we are today is because of our childhood. Let’s bring back the joy seeing our glorious childhood, recall the cry for not going to school, not doing homework, for not finishing our tiffin boxes. Let’s open our old family album which is in dust for long and be a child again for this one day. We’re so much in stress such that we hardly have time for such small things. But these small things are the ones which make life special. If you’re a parent, see yourself in your daughter/son and share their happiness. We also as citizens could do our bit to the helpless children who hardly have any luxury in life. Let’s make their life special and the satisfaction we get is immeasurable. Life always provides us opportunities, for nurturing a good individual probably childhood is one. Inspirations are so many in lives…take the late Princess Diana, Mother Theresa. They never expected anything back for what they did. So all the kids out there, enjoy these moments, you have life only once, so is childhood, live it to the fullest, realize your responsibilities and be a happy person in any situation,come what may.The below article has been exclusively written by Nehru for children.So,have a glance in his own words to how much he loved children.
Love and Happiness: Nehru's Letter To Children
By Jawaharlal Nehru
Dear Children,
I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very long ago since I was a child.
But when I sit down to write, I cannot forget my age and the distance that separates you from me. Old people have a habit of delivering sermons and good advice to the young.
I remember that I disliked this very much long ago when I was a boy. So I suppose you do not like it very much either. Grown-ups also have a habit of appearing to be very wise, even though very few of them possess much wisdom. I have not yet quite made up my mind whether I am wise or not.
Sometimes listening to others I feel that I must be wise and brilliant and important. Then, looking at myself, I begin to doubt this. In any event, people who are wise do not talk about their wisdom and do not behave as if they were very superior persons...
What then shall I write about? If you were with me, I would love to talk to you about this beautiful world of ours, about flowers, trees, birds, animals, stars, mountains, glaciers and all the other beautiful things that surround us in the world. We have all this beauty all around us and yet we, who are grown-ups, often forget about it and lose ourselves in our arguments or in our quarrels. We sit in our offices and imagine that we are doing very important work.
I hope you will be more sensible and open your eyes and ears to this beauty and life that surrounds you. Can you recognise the flowers by their names and the birds by their singing? How easy it is to make friends with them and with everything in nature, if you go to them affectionately and with friendship. You must have read many fairy tales and stories of long ago. But the world itself is the greatest fairy tale and story of adventure that was ever written. Only we must have eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind that opens out to the life and beauty of the world.
Grown-ups have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and groups. They build barriers... of religion, caste, colour, party, nation, province, language, customs and of rich and poor. Thus they live in prisons of their own making. Fortunately, children do not know much about these barriers, which separate. They play and work with each other and it is only when they grow up that they begin to learn about these barriers from their elders. I hope you will take a long time in growing up...
Some months ago, the children of Japan wrote to me and asked me to send them an elephant. I sent them a beautiful elephant on behalf of the children of India... This noble animal became a symbol of India to them and a link between them and the children of India.
I was very happy that this gift of ours gave so much joy to so many children of Japan, and made them think of our country... remember that everywhere there are children like you going to school and work and play, and sometimes quarrelling but always making friends again. You can read about these countries in your books, and when you grow up many of you will visit them. Go there as friends and you will find friends to greet you.
You know we had a very great man amongst us. He was called Mahatma Gandhi. But we used to call him affectionately Bapuji. He was wise, but he did not show off his wisdom. He was simple and childlike in many ways and he loved children... he taught us to face the world cheerfully and with laughter.
Our country is a very big country and there is a great deal to be done by all of us. If each one of us does his or her little bit, then all this mounts up and the country prospers and goes ahead fast.
I have tried to talk to you in this letter as if you were sitting near me, and I have written more than I intended.
Jawaharlal Nehru December 3, 1949
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