On Pallavi

I spoke, today, with a little girl of eight,
So verbose, so affectionate.
Why the Harry Potter book and not the movie,
Why dance lessons while enjoyable are tiring.
Why music classes are so much fun,
With games of Hide-and-Seek and Magician.
Knows no strangers, this child who reasons.
I am yet to meet a child more winsome.
Rightly so, she has a long list of friends
Their varied interests make her more exuberant.
Reading she loves and her vast collection gives her pride
Her mother’s accusation of glancing through pages, she loudly decries.
Without hesitation she bursts into a song requested,
Ingenuously, she guides you along the path she’s charted.
By a mere child, I am humbled again,
Strangely grand are God’s ways.


- Written on August 15, 2007

- A conversation with Pallavi, a cousin’s child, led me to articulate what I have oft thought when meeting kids. God/Life/ some superior power/ energy force makes us realize that we have lost more than we have gained in terms of innocence and faith, hope and mercy, as we traverse through life in the guise of the more evolved version of humans – an adult.
- I wondered how I would speak with her, what could I talk about. She left my concerns in the dust. The girl held my hand and gently led me along. The sighted leading the blind. And a better guide I couldn’t have asked for.
- I am constantly surprised by children’s rationale. And know what? They often make more sense than the adults around them. She is a darling child, this one. But hey, that is what kids are most times, right? I hope adulthood never befalls them – or if it does then only in the best of spirits.
- Thank you all kids in my life, (since Karthik, before that I was a kid myself). Thank you for constantly educating me.