Being the youngest in my family, I have had opportunities to interact with all my nieces and nephews. I also had lot of opportunity to spend time taking care of them, when elders were busy with other jobs. I used to then, cook up stories while feeding them with their food or making them sleep. Slowly, I myself developed an interest in mimicking and changing voices and with the help of eyes and hands to bring a story alive and capture the attention of the child. No matter how stupid story I said, whether it had any moral or not, ending or not, every child with whom I spoke, reciprocated either by laughter, tears or making his own ending of my incomplete stories.
It is a divine pleasure to be in the company of children and speak to them about their imaginations and fantasies.
The same story-telling session, I tried with my neighbours children. But alas! I couldnt make them sit still even for 5 minutes. Listening and imagining is neither taught nor given importance as a tool to bring up children. Watching TV adds to curtailing the imagination of the child because what is shown on TV is what enters the child's mind. There is no scope or time for the child to think on its own. As a result, they are not given enough food for thought for their brilliant brains to work on any matter. They wake up in the morning and sit in front of TV watching their favourite cartoons, while their parents get their teeth brushed, hair combed, uniforms worn, breakfasts eaten, shoes tied and then the parents carry the school bags, lift the children and drop them to their schools in their flashy cars. All this, because, the parents do not want any ruckus/ arguments and delay in the morning schedule. They, themselves have to leave for work and they would have come home late the previous night from a party or movie or office.
The children have become mechanised instruments to be used only as proof of existence of a family.
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