When we were young…

I grew up on a healthy diet of Winnie the Pooh, Noddy and Dennis the Menace, along with comics like Little Lotta, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Charlie Brown. At that time and age, no one was bothered about issues like child abuse, racism and sexual innuendo; we just read the funnies and thoroughly enjoyed them. We usually had company – a parent or two, siblings, best friends, maybe even a whole host of all these people – and it was like having one big party, with a literary flavour. Then, after I was grown up and read Winnie the Pooh only when I was in bed with the flu and Noddy to a little girl I knew, someone decided to take a dark look at these classics and came up with stuff that turned my stomach – Noddy was rascist, Lotta was politically incorrect, Peanuts was negativistic, et al.

So where has all the innocence and joie de vivre of childhood vanished to? Why can’t we just be and let things be? As I pause between paragraphs writing this, I see three little girls playing in the garden outside. They are being hosed down by a gardener watering the lawn, all four of them laughing delightedly. None of the children is old enough or physically developed enough for anyone to imbue the scene with anything more than what it seems to be…unless of course, seeing the very seamy side of that scenario, the gardener has a perverse streak.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the local mall with a friend, when he tried to talk to a little girl who was bouncing around with the typical obstreperousness of a two-year-old. For him, it was like talking to his own daughter, almost that age. For me, it was fun to see my overly-rounded buddy bending creakily at his substantial middle to chat up a curly haired, chubby-cheeked, ecstatic small person who couldn’t stand still. For others, it would be nothing out of the ordinary – all Indians have an innate love for small children and will go out of their way to make affectionate physical contact with them. And no one bothers too much.

But it is a different story elsewhere in the world. Stay away from strangers, is the rule. Try and pat an American child on the head or kiss a little British baby – neither of which you have met before – and you are likely to get slapped into jail with a lawsuit for sexual harassment and perversion hanging heavy over your head. Children are taught very young to beware of strangers, with some justification. Few are allowed to play in public spaces (parks or playgrounds) without adult supervision. We in this country are headed in that direction, too.

So is this a good thing? Is this a loss of human innocence, rather than just a loss of youthful idealism? Or is it the best way possible to keep a child safe?