Who said that some things have to be learnt to be experienced? Who said you had to be born on the right side of the fence to experience certain moments? Who said you had to be normal to know the how and when of appropriate behaviour?
Certain things just happen naturally and turn out larger than the best!
Last week a group of young professionals brought a special treat for the children. Beautifully wrapped packets of goodies - pencils, colouring books, crayons and a pencil box -. It was a rare treat as we have by now been used to receiving used gifts piled up in cartons. For many children it was perhaps their first gift ever and we did not know that we were about to be treated to an exceptional moment.
As we handed them out to our very special kids nothing could have let us imagine the whoops of joy that were let out by each and everyone. Be it our very own Manu who spent he better part of his life roaming the streets, or Shalini whose thirty years on the planet does not warrant such a reaction. Little Ruchi's uncontrollable nervous twitches took leave of absence while she opened her packet and Umesh and Ankit could not stop smiling. I am sure that for that instant Neha, Shahida and Rinky's world of silence let the sound of the rustling of the paper slip into their silent reality and Himanshu forgot the obsessive images of his dead mother hanging on the ceiling fan while he set about the task of discovering what lay inside the gold and purple paper.
Each one of these special kids who struggle each day to survive, forgot their dismal existences and were just like any child the world over savouring the thrill of opening a simple gift.
It takes so little to make a child's world right, something we tend to forget.