Happy goes to school ...

This is an excerpt from the life of Happy. Happy is a happy four year old tot. This is the age when a formally formatted education starts. It is the age when fun and adventure moves from the confines of a home, to the playgrounds and class rooms of a school.

Happy attends a school at some long distance from his home. This distance is covered in about twenty minutes involving a walk down the municipal park to the pick up spot where Munshi Ram, a rickshaw driver picks him up for the ride to school. Happy is woken up at 0630 hours so as to be ready for his walk by 0830 hours. As any usual kid, he has to be forced into the shower, cleaned, dried, dressed up and then fed in these two hours. This is a daily arduous task cut out for his Mother. Happy gets a 'bit' oily and well set in hairdo with side partition, like Toby Maguire of spider man fame. He has absolutely no doubt that it is a very uncool hairdo for this century. But Happy doesn't have so many options, given 1. the number of hair on his head and, 2. some how his Mother finds it  better than the rather bizarre hair styles prevalent among his friends.

Then comes the walk down the municipal park. Inquisitive Happy finds the park very exciting. He has been coming here since he was an infant, and no bird, squirrel, worm, puddle of water ever misses from his attention. Happy gets tempted to step into the puddles, but he has to be very careful so that Mother doesn't notice. Every minute detail of this path is known to him and his excited mind keeps on probing deeper. He sees the birds sitting on the trees, knows a family of cats that live in a corner and follow him some times. Some times there are tennis balls that were lost in the bushes from previous evening's cricket matches. Those are prized catches. They are to be shown off at the school among friends.

Again, as any usual kid, he has an affinity to worms. The other day when Mother came across an Aunty from the neighborhood  Happy took on the opportunity to follow an earthworm. He got his hands and knees dirty and had to be pulled away from the terrified being, like a sniffing dog unwilling to let go. He got slapped on his back for making himself dirty and couple of tears rolled down his eyes. He felt ashamed and humiliated in front of an Aunty. The moment was terrible but soon he let it go when he was allowed to chase away a squirrel.

Munshi Ram's rickshaw is a bit over crowded but he packs the kids in the small space very efficiently. There are hooks on the outer walls to hang school bags. This makes the packed vehicle look over flowing. The yellow colored fragile vehicle is powered by an equally fragile Munshi Ram, who should be in his fifties. About five minutes before the school comes an uphill section of the road. This is beyond Munshi Ram's strength and he has to put some kids out of the rickshaw and make them push. Kids make fun of the old man. These are young fellows who barely know their own age, so the elderly driver does not bother. Very diligently, he stops the rickshaw after the uphill, and packs the kids back in. Some times, a fight breaks up among the kids and some times they laugh at their own stories like knowledgeable adults. The rickshaw is late to the school almost every day, and Munshi ram makes excuses to the Principal ma'am.

Then starts the school which is equally adventurous.

Days and months and years will pass and these kids will grow to be adults. They will be free to wake up at their own schedules, try their own hair styles. Wisdom and longing will make them respect the poor rickshaw driver's fragility  Some will even miss him. Inquisitiveness of the smallest things in nature will be lost. Busy schedules will take away the joys that are filled in the air by Mother Nature. There's an amazing lot to be learnt from the kids and their lives.