It’s a wonderful life

“When was your life most wonderful?” the answer, almost always is- “When I was a kid.” But why is it so? Is it because we eventually grew up to give it all up? Or because we decided to forget how to be a carefree kid?

It was Math exam. We students, (as it happens before any math exam) were at our textbooks for any last-moment enlightenments. A last chance at passing the test was being searched for with unseen fervor. Pages hurriedly turned, formulas rhythmically chanted.

 In this chaos, I saw a few of my classmates, laughing and running around- a stark contrast to the roomful of loonies I was in. I decided to give up the hopeless pursuit of last minute knowledge and joined them instead.

Through the pores in the brick wall, the sun’s thin rays are seen in the corridor. They look like the fragile, silver-golden spells from a magical wand- ethereal, alluring and serene. From where we were, they also looked impossibly tangible, revealing the trail of dust speckles along their lithe course.  For some unfathomable reason, we decided to catch hold of the luminous beams and put it in our pockets! We ran about the corridor-a couple of 16 year olds, giggling and comparing the amount of ‘sun’ we could catch hold of. All of which was done in the cheery, frivolous attitude, of which children are the only masters.  

As we teased each other, holding on to our precious pockets, all of the Euclid and trigonometry were forgotten and their place was taken by unadulterated joy. Five fortuitous, happy minutes (and a few pockets), at the cost of losing one’s label of ‘maturity’ had made the day a new, wonderful one.

Wasn’t it what we’re all searching for? A little laughter, a little wonder and a pocketful of sunshine? For all our wisdom, we have a lot to learn from the little kids we had been for those few minutes- that life, indeed, is immensely wonderful, in all its stages- if you want it to be. Take this moment to be a kid, have a wonderful life and grab that pocketful of sunshine before it is dusk!