Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Inquisitive Innocence

Wanted to break the silos of writing only management thoughts and thus doing injustice to the title of my blog! I had reduced the frequency with which I travel and meet new / old people. Just getting back…

It was a colleagues’ marriage in north Karnataka and a few of us at office decided to board a train for the travel. A last minute entry into the train saw us running towards our seats before settling down. Next to our seat was a 6-7 year old kid (or should I call him a BOY :D) of one of our other colleagues who was trying to unwind into his own world. A quick talk and play with him and we were already friends since ages (thanks to the innocence in him…)!

Sitting near the doors of the train next to him proved to be a killer step in befriending him as he hadn’t experienced it ever in the past. But to my surprise, this made him become inquisitive about whatever he saw outside. How is the mud formed? Why is the coconut tree having a body which looks like a stick? Why is the Sun moving behind the clouds? How is water formed? What is a train made of? Given the shape of the railway line, how are the wheels? Why are there stones in between the tracks? Etc etc etc! These questions seemed to never end for the rest of the day.

Though the trip ended last Sunday, I still had these questions running in my mind and the thought of schools shutting down this inquisitiveness cluttered those thoughts! Though there are a lot of schools coming up these days which cater to fill the gap mentioned above, I feel that it surely isn’t enough. Any kid should be given opportunities to explor(d)e, learn from their own mistakes (in which case it should be put into situations where mistakes are bound to happen), question, vent out into areas unknown, etc. The inquisitiveness should not be crumpled because of the shear need of a foolish society! Hope to see a new thought process to arise…

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