The Wise Children, Adults and Disarmament

I’m very much delighted to present to you the first ever guest post in my blog. This has been written by the person who had been the sole reason behind my successful IIT life. He is my best friend and is the one among those whom I feel as my strength. His name is Ravi. He had drafted me his copy and asked me to post it in my blog. Here it goes and I hope you would enjoy reading this…

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In the IXth std textbook on history, I remember we had back to back chapters, one on 'Cold War' and the other on 'Disarmament'. After I finished reading these chapters, I had the following thoughts running in my mind:

"The moment I become the Prez of U.S and U.S.S.R, I would declare complete disarmament and no production of nuclear weapons henceforth”. As a child this was very clear and simple for me. But now as an adult this concept of 'complete disarmament' is not very clear and I am starting to ask a few dumb questions on this very simple topic.

“What would be the future of earth after complete disarmament?”
"Wouldn’t it be more safe?"
The answers to these questions are very difficult to figure out and would put any grown up into a spot of bother.

Common Sense Research Studies have indicated that children ask wise questions and adults end up asking the dumb ones which is referred to as 'adult syndrome'. Children ask ‘why’ to most of the statements, which happen to be intelligent questions always. Let us take an example of such an adult syndrome.

A co-passenger asks another waiting for a train,
"When will the train come?”

In my village even the railway station master doesn’t know the arrival time. At the sound of an approaching train, he comes out to ring the bell in anticipation of the train. More often it turns out to be either a super fast express train that doesn’t halt or a train carrying goods.

It has happened countless number of times and yet the grown ups continue to ask him of train's arrival. But I have never seen a child approaching him.

Mark Twain has this rare ability to come up with intelligent answers to such 'adult questions'. He was once asked, "Will I reach this same spot if I walk straight along this road?” pointing to a long straight road ahead.

Mark Twain replied, "Oh Yes, surely. But don’t turn back and don’t turn to your right or left."

Mr. Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts in international diplomacy and to hasten nuclear disarmament. Finally, an U.S Prez is thinking along the same lines of the child within me. However, he has taken just a few steps that are no where near the idea of complete disarmament. It still is a distant dream. But my mother used to say," Dreams have this peculiar feature. They turn to be a reality one day and when least expected".

If only we allowed the child within us to take decisions on such critical issues will that day remain not far away from now!