Lord of the Flies

Listening to Hotel California by the Eagles. The haunting lyrics, "some dance to remember, some dance to forget". Oh! how thankful i am to the lord i cannot say. Have to narrate the events preceding this statement of mine. A lazy monsoony sunday in Mumbai. Woke up pretty late and hit the nearest watering hole. Nothing like a beer and a good book on a sunday afternoon.. I was reading the book " Lord of the Flies".. something abt the book.. by far the most disturbing book i've read.. and i've read a lot of them!.. A simple story of a group of boys washed ashore on to a uninhabited island and their quest to be rescued.. an outstandingly amazingly fantabulously well written book which shatters the myth that children are divine. The book lays bare the myth that adults are the only ones with twisted minds... But the more important revelation to me was that I would not on any given day want to be a child once again. No, No... it has nothing to do with the book. To me Innocence has no value. It has only theatrical value. I would not even begin to curse my worst enemy with the spell of ignorance/innocence.. give me wisdom anyday and take away my innocence, which is just a shell for ignorance..

I distinctly remember each moment of my childhood and it was a pretty normal one at that..no abuses,no upheavals, no parental divorces,no sexual abuse, no poverty, no major cultural changes..all in all, NORMAL.. Nothing to give me regrets.. But what i remember most about the childhood is my consciousness.. I distinctly remember the day i deflated the tyre of who i thought at that time was my enemy number 1, a neighbour of mine.. it was the cold-hearted calculated evil with which i intended to harm to him, in however a childish way, that shudders and sends the shivers down my spine.. Yes, even at that age of 12, i know and remember my intent to cause harm and nothing can convince me that i was childish and hence excusable from the guilt..

When i look back at my childhood, i can never remember a single instant when i considered myself a child.. no where do i remember that the decisions that i took were in any way not conscious.. i did certain actions which might be considered foolish. but those actions, i might still do as a adult..to me the revelation, therefore is not that i was ignorant.. but the revelation is that, at no instant in my life have i been unconscious.. if i go back even further, i can still remember my first year at school,in my lower kindergarden... i distinctly remember my school premises, the strict mathematics teacher,Ms.K.. My fear; my anxiety at being called during the class; my desire to feign illness to skip her class.

Give me awareness anytime.. give me knowledge any time.. Thank god i'm no longer a kid.. I cannot imagine myself going through that phase of ignorance.any more.. the phase when i could not articulate my instincts.. when i had no adequate phrase to explain my actions to myself.. the phase when i had no proper experience to relate to which could have tempered my actions.. thank god, i'm no longer a child!

Knowledge is power and consciousness is divine.