Recently my daughter came down with throat infection. The doctor diagnosed it as Allergic Bronchitis (a term my daughter had
not heard before) and termed it bad! As we walked out of the clinic, my
daughter asked in all seriousness ‘’Am I going to die?’’. I was taken aback but gained my wits and replied ‘Very
unlikely!’’. She immediately relaxed and said that
then it is fine, it is just that she has to take medicines and recover. It
struck me that in her mind, there were just the two extreme possibilities of
being well and being unwell to the point of dying! It sounds bizarre but this made me realize how children take comfort in
the world of black and white, a world where there is no grey or
uncertainty.
But as we grow, the world transforms into a kaleidoscope of greys with
tiny patches of white and black at the edges. As much as the visual of that world is shifting and unsettling, the
implications reflect this chaos. It simply complicates
our lives and relationships, but we deal with it as necessary evil. Sadly the
society most often tends to write down adults who carry this White and Black
view of the world as Simpletons or naive!
Which is why, it is comforting to listen to a child’s logic (with no
greys) when stuck with some issue. It immediately puts
things in a perspective. Like taking comfort in the fact that a
throat infection will not kill me and thus help in tiding through it!
