Loss of Innocence

As a child, I used to wonder why elders around us always said that childhood is the best part of our lives. Childhood, a phase, we hardly remember. I am, but of course referring to below 5-6 years of a child’s life. When school was not a torture but a fun place to go, homework was not on back of our minds, when playing until dusk would bring the happiest and brightest smiles on our faces. In short, simple things gave us happiness, which today is hard to find.

As we grow up, we go through so many challenges, right from giving our final exams to finishing a race with hopes that the lad behind me isn’t catching up! This phase-the cocoon, a child is constantly guarded, guided and provided an environment conducive enough to concentrate on his/her studies. Our parents have strived hard to make sure that we live in this cocoon till the time we start making our own decisions.

And now here comes the bigger challenge, a challenge for which no one can prepare us for, coming in terms with the repercussions of decisions made and facing the world with it as our only support. Some may refer to it as their big plan, often with an added reference to their Plan B. The journey makes us meet different people, travel, work hard and learn. Learn from our mistakes, misbelieves and pain. Pain, because it pains every time we trust the wrong people, do not achieve our targets or are lagging far behind them. Surviving and being ahead of others as well as our plans is all that is thought of. The innocence we brought with our selves as a child is somehow lost somewhere down the line.