The Right to Waste our Childhood
A dream of creative children - chilling out of the box
Dear reader,
It is the day before I leave for my hometown. I stand in a huge ‘Gifts, Art, Stationery’ emporium. The shelves are gleaming with tubes of paint and trays of pastels. Sketchbooks dream of the artists who will fill them up. I am awestruck. But I am not here for myself.
I spot the store manager. His earring shines as much as his smile. “Can you suggest anything for a six-and-a-half-year-old?” My nephew would not want me to omit half a year of his life. The manager asks, “Games ya toys?” I reply, “Do you have something creative?”
I live away from my adorable nibling. The things I bring him might be my only contribution to his growth and nurturance. I am here as his Raju Mavshi.
Determined to find a good gift
The manager takes me to an aisle full of boxes. There is a kit here for everything. Sand art, bead art, glass painting, rock painting. The tribal art kit costs ₹599. Kits for candles, soaps, dreamcatchers, and glittery slime. Happy white kids grin at me from the covers.
The manager points me to a T-shirt painting kit. Wearing your art does seem like a cool idea. He sells me the fact that the painting is already outlined - a beach with a coconut tree and a setting sun. “Bacche ko khaali paint karna hai.”
“How is that creative?” I wonder. I force a smile and request him to give me some time. My nephew hasn’t even seen a beach yet. Wouldn’t I rather give him fabric paints to go crazy on an old t-shirt? That’s what I had done as a kid. I had an intense fabric painting phase. To add some bling, I had even sewn sequins on the painted clothes.
Wasting my Childhood
Thinking of my nephew always reminds me of my childhood. I think I wasted it. I didn’t read a lot as a child and watched way too many Hindi TV soaps. I lost many years to “TIME PASS” as we called it.
One such ‘time pass’ was watching my grandmother make Sevaiya. I would learn words like dexterity and ductility later. But I loved staring at Aaji’s wrinkled hands rolling the solid dough into fine wires.
I used diluted Sunsilk shampoo and the body of a Cello Gripper pen to make bubbles. Today we can make giant bubbles with bubble wands, guns, and magic solutions. I was gleeful with my small, iridescent ones. Once, I even sucked the soapy water in, instead of blowing it out. I coughed and laughed and coughed. It made a good story. Was I the same person?
I played with sand at a construction site near my school. I made a stone collection. One stone had a blue centre as if it had swallowed water. Someone threw out my bag of stones. It didn’t matter.
Characters, Objects, Music, and Mess
An old Slam Book had entries by Simran Gandhi and Bhoomika Gandhi. “Who are these girls? I don’t know them.” I spent a week racking my brain. I realised that these were the names of my old Barbies. I had given them Bollywood-inspired first names and my surname. They had unique preferences. Simran loved Black and Bhoomika loved Fuchsia. Simran had a crush on Shah Rukh Khan and Bhoomika fancied the cricketer Brett Lee. Simran wanted to be a journalist and Bhoomika wanted to be an expert in Chemistry. I had created characters and forgotten about them.
I enjoyed housing audio cassettes in the right covers by listening to them one by one. I relished in arranging my mother’s bangles on a steel hanger. Of course, after wearing all the bangles I could fit on my forearms and breaking a few. I loved opening messy drawers and boxes. Mess was mysterious and rewarding.
Marie Kondo would have fainted in my house. But aren’t objects fantastic for a child with imagination?
Put two characters around an object, and you get an instant storyline. Use your mother’s bangle to draw the earth, and you see a metaphor. Objects are props around which kids and adults gather to make meaning or a story. It can be silly or profound. There is delight in unplanned, unboxed, unpredictable activity. There is beautiful influence of colours, shapes, and sounds.
Maybe I didn't waste my childhood. Rather, it was my right to waste my childhood. And I wish that right for all children.
Simpler alternatives
Though they promise “creativity”, I walk away from the boxes. School itself is a big box with a timetable full of boxes. Do we need to box-ify free time? And doesn’t creativity thrive out of the box?
I worry that the store manager will be mad at me for not buying anything. On a boring shelf, I spot a folded World Map. I buy it. I figure it would be fun to stick it on the wall - at a height where my nephew could move his fingers over it.
When I finally reach home, he asks, “Majhya saathi kaahi aanla aahe ka tu, Raju Mavshi?” “Have you brought anything for me?”
“The entire world!” I exaggerate.
I unfold the map in front of him. He is not as thrilled as he would have been if I had got him a huge box. I ask him to spot where we are. He searches for India. Looking at me, he points at the centre of the country, and says, “We are here!”
Isn’t that good enough?
Yours creatively,
“Maybe I didn't waste my childhood. Rather, it was my right to waste my childhood. And I wish that right for all children.”
And I also wish that right for every adult... we must waste more time doing nothing, being, just being 🩷
"Put two characters around an object, and you get an instant storyline. Use your mother’s bangle to draw the earth, and you see a metaphor. Objects are props around which kids and adults gather to make meaning or a story. It can be silly or profound."
For this writer who wasted her childhood being an adult and not playing at all, these lines are a balm for the soul. Thankyou for reminding me - with so much love and certitude - that I'm doing things right now 🌻