The other day I was watching a fair and lovely advertisement on television. Such advertisements have always vexed me and I’ve always failed to understand how beauty and success can be measured by a person’s color. I wanted to drive this question into my class so when one day
Krish, the most talkative and opinionated boy of my class was sitting on the stairs, all by himself, waiting for his dad to pick him up, I grabbed the opportunity , went up to him with a blank paper and a pencil and asked him to draw “A Beautiful Girl.”
“What do you think a beautiful girl looks like?”, I said. He drew a stick figure of sorts, red and yellow in colour, with big ears, long hands and a wide nose. I asked him, “What kind of hair does a beautiful girl have” to which he replied, “Didi ke jaise lambe baal par chote baal bhi acche lagte hai.” I interrogated him more and asked him questions like “What do you think is the color of a beautiful girl?” He said “Red, I like red. Par yellow bhi accha hai…um blue bhi and black,just like your hair. Didi, saare colors hi ache hai...beautiful girl….all colors.”
His innocent answer just melted my heart and made me realize how pure and blank the mind of a child is. It is the society that drives prejudices and divisions into the minds of children and forces them to differentiate each other based on color,caste,creed etc.
It is so refreshing to listen to the opinions of these 5 year olds because they are free from any biases. The anger that I felt after watching the advertisement was washed away by the joy that I felt in knowing that i spend my days interacting with and moulding such young, free and pure minds. Krish reminded me that just like him, the world needs to appreciate, accept and celebrate differences because “saare colors hi acche hai.”
Story submitted by Anukshi, 2015 Cohort, Ahmedabad
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