Age of Innocence

Of late, I have developed a desire to move away from this conservative city to a new city and new life. I feel like reaching the stagnation point at work. No inspiration at all. It is all too mundane and murky.

Then I will have to leave my loving ones behind for a few years. For we are not sure how the little one will adjust to new climates, be it bang or bomb or del. I would love to live in Cal, but may be later as I age. Not for now.

I will have to set out on my own. Whenever I am free from family, I have always worked hard and true. Still, the family lingers in me making me reluctant to leave them to work far away from home. But again, If experience is life, I have no new experiences.

I sleep with these thoughts.

Early last morning, I awoke to innocence. As it dawned, the white light seeped in with the wind through the flowery-curtained window with deep brown frames. The little one was fast asleep, in innocence.

I have the habit of looking at the faces of little ones all these years, especially early in the morning. I am not sure if I should post a picture here. May be my loving one will object. I am sure many of you, particularly the parents, have experienced a similar sight in your bedroom.

Baked in that white soft light, I have watched sleeping children for hours till the glow gets yellowish. I look at the mirror and I see no innocence. I take a look at others sleeping in home. It is not there.

Where have we lost our innocence? In the daily struggle for work and money or by living along wicked and greed; by thinking triviality or by consumerist senses; by forgetting the child in us or by the sheer hatred the humanity has accumulated. I am not sure.

And then a thought gently flowed into me. I imagined the soft light bathing the earth as it revolved ceaselessly. By now, the sun was bathing the sub-continent with his soothing light as it dawned early. For ages, the mornings have dawned on us in perfect innocence.

Our elders woke to it. May be, we are sleeping over that blissful innocence (of the morning). Are most of us not living in the darkest corners of our minds, living our deepest desires (not necessarily known to others) strung together by that ticking time? If you want to see the beauty of timelessness, watch the little ones sleeping blissfully in the mornings.

Then, I slowly sensed time. Vaguely, I think time too is innocent.

Eternally.