What would you say or do if you found your kid running out the door when there was a raging storm outside? What would you say or do when you saw your kid plucking out an earthworm from the kitchen garden and putting it in his mouth? What would you say when you heard that someone insisted that the Earth was not the centre of the Universe? Or that the world indeed was round and not flat as was widely believed at the time? How many of us congratulate our kids when they come home to tell us that they have dropped out of school to pursue butterfly watching? Or as is happening more often these days (or so I hear) to become a rock star?
All these people existed in the past, walk the Earth
today and will be born in the future. And many of these people changed the
world. So, my question is when did they stop being unruly, rebellious, not
knowing what they really wanted, did not listen to the world, essentially more
akin to Bozo the Clown when compared to their more “illustrious” peer group, to
becoming what they ultimately did become by what they accomplished.
When we look at a child we see this little bundle of joy,
learning how to take their first tentative steps with their parents holding on
to their little arms. Parents who at that very young age give them the
confidence to take that first step. And then the next. The look of amazement
and joy and wonder of any parent who has witnessed his or her child’s first
steps is something that lives on for a very long time. The parent, along with
the infant, are also taking their first steps. There are no authoritative books
written on bringing up children and for each set of parents, for every child in
the Universe, it is journey of discovery. Of adventure. Of amazement.
And then the parents grow up. Doubts come into their
minds. Protecting their children from the big bad world outside becomes their
top priority. They do not want the child to get hurt. And the little bundle of
joy gets more and more isolated from the real world, parents start taking the
decisions and a life of dependence slowly crawls into their world, misting
their environment. If something does go wrong, the parents are always there to
soften the effect by taking the blow themselves.
But a child has a way of growing up too. S/he goes to
school, s/he makes new friends and gets exposed to a world outside of home,
learns of a life different from his/her own. Ideas take ground, but often do
not find the soil to germinate in the cushioned and carpeted confines of home.
Often times a rebel is born. As s/he grows older, the rebel grows wings in
manners that manifest in different ways.
One way is the rebel gets a voice is by questions.
Authority is questioned. Rules are questioned. Laws are not sacrosanct anymore.
The answer to the question “Why is the sky blue” is not shut down by a retort “Sit
down and finish your meal”.
For some of these rebels the questions find a firm
fertile soil and take ground. The rebel starts questioning the whys and hows and
why nots of the world. The answers are few and the questions are many. Many get
left by the wayside, joining the teeming millions in their race to put food on
the table. For but a tiny few the quest continues.
There is a very thin line between finding the answer and
not finding it. For those who do not, there are monikers that get annexed to
their name – Maverick, Basketcase, Silly, Stupid, Crazy. And then there are
those who get a different nickname – GENIUS. And that is where Ben Franklins
and Albert Einsteins and Galileos and Edisons are exposed to the rest of the
word. They become the successful people. They are the ones about who books are
written and syllabi designed around. It was just that one small step in the
continuity of time that worked in their favour that turned them from being a
maverick to a genius.
Do you doubt that there is a genius in everyone? I don’t.
It is just that we do not provide the opportunity for that genius to flourish.
Of course luck plays a very big role in success. The right place. The right
time. The right person sitting in front of you. The right colour of the money
backing your thoughts. A lot of things need to come together. There are only a
small fraction of successes, but that does not mean that we stop the questions
emanating from the minds and hearts of a young child who is just about entering
this unique, crazy, confusing world, trying to find answers to this madness around,
trying to work out in that small brain how to make it a better place for
everyone.
And then we turn back and call him Bozo the Clown. Who
knows which Bozo the Clown will grow up to be the one to find a way to settle
in Mars. Or the cure to cancer. Or maybe just how to make the rose smell nicer.
Let us give Bozo the Clown all the support s/he needs and not shroud a possibly
bright future down in clouds of ignorance and fear.
Long live Bozo the Clown.
