‘Where do the oceans come from, Baba bear?’
‘Can we see inside stars?’
‘Baba bear, what is under the sea?’
‘Do you think dogs like us as much as we like them or do they only love us for food?’
‘If the sky were green, would we call green blue?’
‘Why are trees, Baba?’
‘Where does money come from?’
‘What happens when we die, Baba bear?’
Usually, when we go to our training ground on weekday mornings, we have a few minutes of a lull (because we are usually the first to arrive).
We use this time to walk around hand-in-hand (she likes to skip) and talk. She usually asks some random question and I try to answer it.
The funny part is that when she’s off training, I walk my 10,000 steps (just under 8km), which I need to start pushing up in preparation for the Bharat Jodo Yatra that I am planning to join for a few days when it reaches Maharashtra. I used to carry my phone on me and listen to some podcast (typically about current affairs, philosophy, cosmology, or military), but that stopped during the monsoon (you see, waterproof phones are slightly beyond my paygrade at the moment) and I utilised those 80-odd minutes of walking to think about things concerning me. Why am I telling you this? Because while I thought about my clients, their deadlines, my relationships, my motorcycle, rides coming up, what I am going to eat for dinner, lists of people to call, accounting and money-related issues, and so on, my 8yo, when given the same chance of being able to think while on a walkabout, chose to contemplate on oceans and stars, about life, the universe, and everything.
I am sure that I had similar questions as a child, as I am sure you did too. But somewhere, we grew up. And forgot to ask these with as much sincerity and frequency. I think that’s rather a shame.
I wonder why, as we age, we lose the big picture, we go inwards, we stop wondering about the profound things and focus on the mundane, why we become smaller and smaller in a world that we are discovering is larger and larger? Why do we not grapple with the big questions anymore as often as we used to when we were kids?
I am sure there is a pat answer to this. But it is not the answer that I seek. It is that I wish to go back to thinking about larger, deeper, more important things in my life again instead of reducing myself to the most immediate, and base, identity.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling for today. Here are a couple of completely contextless photographs of the little baby bear sitting on BattleCat III and revving her engine as we prepare to go to her Taekwondo classes.
Have a great evening, folks!
