I can never forget,

The kind of Innocent Smiles they give.

The kind of expression of Unconditional Trust they have.

The kind of Simplicity they manifest.

The kind of feeling of In-Differentiation they posses.

The kind of Respect they give to Humanity.

The way they show their enthusiasm towards Learning Everything in Existence.

The way they Help each other.

The way they Enjoy the games without any feeling of competition.

The way they manifest the real meaning of “Freedom” or “Swatantrata”.

Yes, It is not only true with the kids in AshaKiran but with every kid we have ever seen. It is just the glimpse of what a Natural Human Conduct is, what Relationships are, what Trust is, what the craver of Knowledge is, what the expression of Happiness is.

I was teaching Hindi to kids in AshaKiran this Saturday. There were 4 kids all of less than 4th standard. They do not know Hindi. They just know some English and Telugu. One girl in them has good english. Her english is even better than what I knew after joining IIIT-H in first year. She is in 4th standard. Her name is Ramani. She was helping me in communicating with other 3 kids. I was talking to her in English and she in turn was explaining other 3 in telugu. Ramani studies in HCU campus school. Other kids study in some other school somewhere in Gachibowli. These kids come from the slums near IIIT-H.

We were studying below “Jagruti Tree” near the main gate of IIIT-H. I was just telling them about what the things around are called in Hindi. Like, a Tree in hindi is called “Ped”, a Pen is hindi is called “Kalam”, a leaf in hindi is called “Patti” etc. After a study of around 15 minutes Ramani said, “Teacher this grass ….”. She took one grass leaf out of ground and was trying to prick that into her hand and was showing me how it is making them uncomfortable to sit on the ground. She did not know how to express this in english.

We sat on the boundary wall of the tree. We discussed many a things. One girl among them, Anitha, was feeling shy or probably inferior to speak since she did not know English. I told Ramani to tell Anitha that “Telugu is a good language and she can speak in telugu itself. There are no restrictions on you all here, you can do whatever you like”. She started speaking in Telugu which I could not understand, but I was happy that she was speaking. After a study of around 30 minutes, Ramani asked “can we play teacher?”. I said, “Yes, you can play, you can sing, you can do whatever you like”.

They started playing “Bhagam-Bhag” (running and chasing). I was just observing them. The expression of Happiness they had, the kind of Simplicity they were manifesting. It was really magnificent. Those few moments took me to imagine a dream world in which every person on earth posses such qualities and is every actively happy.

After some time they came back to me, “Teacher shall we play Antakshari?”. I said, “OK lets play”. They first sang some song in telugu to decide who will sing first, then they sang many songs and also danced. I also sang with them.

After that they started swinging on the tendrils of Banyan tree. They were very happy. They were saying “Bye-Bye” to every other person passing by, and like this we spent around one hour playing, swinging, dancing and singing.

The kind of natural behavior these kids manifested, reinforced my knowledge about the goodness of a human being.

The way these days children are brought up, they are given daily doses of being competitive, being selfish, to differentiate between people, to mistrust and disrespect people. These doses are given regularly on the name of being “Practical”. The effect of these doses is so much that ultimately a human being is neither happy within nor he is able to make others happy. The feeling of insecurity a person lives in makes him to search for security in everything and in everybody, but since everybody is given the similar kind of doses from the beginning so there is nobody whom he can Trust or who can Trust him. A person remains deprived. Deprived of relationships, deprived of facilities, deprived of everything. This feeling of deprivation or feeling of insecurity within him makes him unhappy. To get rid of this deprivation a person uses various tactics, various shrewdnesses with the assumption that this will make him prosperous. When even shrewdness doesn’t work then he uses violence with the assumption that it will make him prosperous. But it doesn’t!

It creates such an environment which we see now. It forces parents to give “doses” to their children and to make them “Practical” and ultimately this chain continues.

Welcome to the real world!