Sunday 22 May 2011

THE PETER PAN COMPLEX




 "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands"
SILENCE
Growing up is hard ,we all succumb to the occasional chocolate cravings,riding a swing (which we've outgrown) when no one's looking,a nostalgia induced game of hide and seek.But do we ever grow up or do we just pretend to move on because we think everyone else has.Isn't a Mango sweeter if you  get it after hitting yourself with the slingshot in the first few tries(don't ask).
As a kid I used to play house with my friends and dream about growing up,eating chocolate in a dentist's office,buying shoes with lights on them:),and never having to do homework :(.But life surprises us with it's astonishing consistency in doing the opposite of what we want.
Now I'm part of the rat race doing more work to get more work.Now I can have all the chocolate in the world but it doesnt taste the same.Now if I pick up that Enid Blyton book,I wouldn't get the same feeling of exhilaration , the joy of wandering off to the land of Topsy -Turvy.Because that rational bossy voice(mine has a British accent)goes like "Enchanted lands INDEED,stop this madness and go read the newspaper,Nicaragua has a new President".Commence eyeroll sequence.At age 8 I would have no qualms in slinging mud on my inside voice and grass on top of it for good measure.Growing up kills our imagination and that sheer unconditional euphoria in knowing it will all work out.As a kid I would try anything to get out of school,a friend suggested putting an onion underneath your armpit induces fever(It doesn't,it merely gives you a bad odour)but still I tried it.

My kindergarten teacher said that magic is real only until you believe in its power.Now that the naive belief has gone so has the magic.
Now ,I'm just Peter Pan trying to hold on to my childhood and trying to get out of finding like who the president of Nicaragua is.