The Village & The Bubble - Part II

... and the Pursuit of Happiness

© 𝕾𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖗𝖆

Part I of The Village & The Bubble elicited a lot of feedback from friends and family. A couple of them below inspired Part II following it. 🙏🏻due credit to them, blame to me.

"...we spent endless hours running gleefully across the lush greens, barefoot, wet under bright blue skies, carefree... they grew up glued to TV , eyes glazed at the computer or hunched over mobiles and Playstations (sadly, enabled by us)."

And an elegant phrase that really resonated, summing up our chat. "Same Village, Cuz." 🙏🏻

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I remember The Village of our childhood as a landscape of dust and cobbled lanes. Our feet were sometimes bare, running out the door in our haste to join our friends, sometimes clad in threadbare slippers if Moms intervened in time and prevailed. Our knees and elbows were almost always scraped, caked with the stubborn brown of earth. We didn’t notice any the pain right away. It arrived quietly, only when a mother’s voice asked, “Why is your shirt torn? Why is there blood?” That’s when we realized that our day's adventures, our games, had left their mark. And tears once repressed rushed out. We had washed our hands and drank from that leaky public faucet out there at the corner, the water cold and tasted metallic. Thirst trumped caution as we drank eagerly, sipping along with whoever was next in line. Whatever lining we had in our tummies overcame any bacteria. Mostly. 

Our little town was slow and mostly sunlit with quick downpours most of the year. The cobbled lanes reflected the afternoon heat, temple bells mingled with rickshaw bells, waking up the neighborhood canine sentries and the bovine population ruminating contentedly. Every wall, every alley, held promise of a secret game waiting to be re-invented. We fell, we skinned ourselves, scabs on scabs, we laughed, we learned to stand again. Pain and joy were inseparable companions. Resilience was not something to be taught, it was absorbed, like dust in our hair, winter freckles on our faces or sunburn on our shoulders.

We never looked towards our parents for providing entertainment. From early on, we realized that any whining like "I'm bored, there's nothing to do" was swiftly followed by  extra math problems, spelling sheets to memorize and two-page essays to complete in both Hindi & English on assorted topics.

When the weather was nice outside (most of the year), we were running around, shouting, chasing each other, climbing walls and trees, conquering the world. There was marbles and cricket with tennis balls. Hiding and Seeking, debating the fairness and hoarse from screaming. A little drenching from a sudden downpour was never a reason to leave our outdoor adventures. We took a break sometimes for meals at any one of the homes in The Village. All were welcome. And until Moms had shouted at least three times sounding really irritated, there was no reason to go home, was there?

When the weather was too hot, too cold or too wet to be outside, there were board games. Ludo with specific rules, some rules around the "Six" roll of the dice, made up on the spur of the moment, hotly disputed by the affected participants. Snakes & Ladders (not any Chutes to slide down, thank you, instead of Serpents). That one long, big, fat, slithering reptile with a forked tongue, the one up in the "90s" seemed to always find me. You probably know it as well. Arghh, to this day. And the endless games of Carrom. With all the black and white pieces, the red Queen and the pale blue Striker all worn smooth from usage. The board, its lines fading, already quite frictionless, still got a liberal dusting of talcum powder surreptitiously swiped from Mom's dressing table. World Champions were crowned daily. Our sisters played more quietly, sometimes joining us for board games, but mostly by themselves - swapping stories, singing songs with made-up lyrics during antakshari,  playing hopscotch, skipping ropes, etc. Lots of giggles from that crowd.

Now, I watch our children play in The Bubble, in a world we have consciously shaped for them. Convinced ourselves that it is better than The Village of our generation. Their play is scheduled, carefully planned, sterilized. Playgrounds are padded, color-coded, age appropriate and carefully supervised. A local children's play area boasts "recycled and triple-washed chips from tires" to cushion any falls. No grass, no dirt, no rocks in sight. The slides, the jungle gyms, the merry-go-rounds are all pleasantly colored soft plastic, not metallic with sharp edges and rusting handles, no surfaces that would grill your rear end on a scorching summer day. 

Every scrape, every tumble is preempted or padded over. Play dates are orchestrated, with adults hovering on the edges, ready to intervene. Learning is measured in activities, lessons, portals and Apps. Our children’s laughter is sanitized, clean, safe, and contained. More colorful toys but seems soulless. 

We had no idea of anything called a video game. Nothing buzzing, beeping or otherwise mind-numbing. Electronic gizmos were on nobody's distant radar. The only soundtrack in our lives was carefree laughter, the loud debates, those fierce and intense arguments, forgotten in a few seconds, Mothers calling us for food or to get home before it got pitch dark. Howzzat!

I tell myself it is out of an abundance of love of our children, out of how much we have learned from the self-anointed InstaCram experts on childhood development since our own upbringing. That our desire to protect them is valid. And yet, I can’t shake the sense that in our quest for child-rearing perfection, we may have traded the development of their resilience for comfort - ours and theirs. When every fall is softened, every risk eliminated, what do children learn about themselves? About limits, boundaries, or the thrill of testing them, transcending them, discovering new horizons?

Where are those dusty lanes, the scrapes that stung and water that tasted of iron and adventure. The freedom to play carelessly again, to discover that hurt is temporary and courage is built slowly, one fall at a time. There is beauty in vulnerability, and I fear we have packaged it away in The Bubble.

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." -George Bernard Shaw

Perhaps the truest gift, the gift of play, we can give our children is not a life without bruises, but the chance to earn them, to stub their toes, to stumble, to rise, and to know, in their own small bodies, that they are stronger than they ever imagined. In that dust, with scraped knees, and  the sting of a sudden fall, to learn to get up, not just to survive, but to come alive and thrive. For a chance to continue playing, not to grow old too quickly. Perhaps what is really needed is a splash of The Village in The Bubble. And a dash of The Bubble in The Village. We need The Village of Bubbles.