PXylem

Ranita Sinha,Kolkata

In today's so called modern e-world a child's childhood is lost somewhere in oblivion.

My heart becomes heavy when I see my daughter busy with her sole companion - the television. Right from morning till bed time she is engrossed with cartoon network, Pogo, Disney, Nick Toon, Hungama, etc. She dresses in front of the television, she takes her food and even prefer reading her books in front of it. She can think nothing else than the cartoon characters and her video game and the computer games- the only games she is accustomed with.

Looking at her, sometimes, I remember my childhood days. Those days were so different from today's. With four siblings in the family we used to have lots of fun. We had lots of space to play too. And being in a joined family we had lots of cousins and we did not have any end to have fun. But in today's nuclear family a child is confined to a 2 to 3 bedroom flat, with no space to move around and with lots of video games and the Television, as the sole companion. But during my childhood days, we used to play lots of outdoor games like cricket, seven stones, hide and sick, kite flying, climbing trees, fishing etc. We as children were so unlike the children of today.

When children these days are busy watching television or playing video or computer games, we were busy playing the game of gilli danda, or stealing fruits from somebody else's garden, or flying kites or fishing. When today's child are computer savvy, we excelled in the art of sharpening the threads used for flying kites. If today you ask a child about the materials used to sharpen the threads, he will not be able to say the necessity to sharpen the thread. Many of them do not even know the name of games that we used to play.

It is really pathetic to see that today's children are deprived of all the fun and happiness they are supposed to have. I heartily wish if the pace of life would have spared at least these little angels.