Hi. My name is Priyanka Das, daughter of a doctor and an engineer, closer to 17 than 18 years old, and with a brother whose support and agreeability depends largely on cookie bribes. I am of the regular everyday teenager species, with all the hopes and all the aspirations… and some dreams.
Well that should be introduction enough for this particular… essay, for want of a more enlightening and apt word, for I feel, any more would certainly pakao many of you up.
Well, my motive behind this attempt at “hogging the limelight” is actually very conventional, innocent even, which can be summed up by the title.
Well, I can almost imagine – pun unintended – the expressions of smugness and skepticism on the faces of some… no, actually, many of my readers who have crossed the 18-year limit, as they shake their head in mild reproach, nod their heads wisely at each other and feel “Imaginativeness? What place does it hold in the real world? What does this kid know about life as we have experienced it?”
So for clarity’s sake let me insert that this article reflects my observations and not the inferences. That’ll come later when the “wise-ones” are ready to accept me in their league, not that I’m too keen on it, or care to join it.
Let me start off with the title. I have used the compound “non-adult” to simply refer to that group of human beings who have a mind that has retained the ability to accelerate and soar, for frankly in my opinion, adults are too stagnant and that many had lost their ability to imagine the moment they blew out the eighteenth candle on their cakes, barring a few exceptions, of course.
Why am I accusing adults of such an abhorrent crime? To substantiate, you wouldn’t find many adults who believe that “war isn’t the only solution” or that “impossible stands for i-m-possible” or that “if there is a God, there must be a tooth-fairy”. Very practical and in-with-the-times perspectives considering those who do not believe them, but I wish… I wish many adults would. At least try to (though maybe not so much in the tooth-fairy, though). That would solve a hell lot of problems.
For imagination also incorporates foresight… Instead of the more time-saving, practical, blah-blah, adultish “what would be”, the “what might’ve been if…” is a better, more imaginative direction to ponder in.
This brings me to the problematic people who unfortunately do exist. The “Unimaginatibles”. I wonder why. I thought God liked balance. But He overdid it. Now there walk amidst us creatures that neither live nor let live.
For example, there are many who keep dumping their worries around them and refuse to let any competent non-adult volunteer to clean up the mess – a case of lack of innovation. Then there are all those people who like to flaunt their ‘A’ grade in leadership from the dais. They trick people into believing them to be shepherds but eventually turn out to be the Pied Piper. This happens routinely, yet people believe in them regardless, unable to adapt, unable to imagine.
Then there are the “aunties”… the thirty-plus denizens who are the vilest creatures to walk on the earth. Their danger lies in their evil minds, albeit crafty. They absolutely refuse to imagine that anything younger than them could be more mature. Their lives seem to revolve on giving you sidelong glares and refusing to acknowledge your presence. They even stoop to the level of the corrosive gossiping that they are the masters of, in a hope to subject you to eternal damnation with their collective curses – they often succeed, sigh – but how they do manage to cook up such stories… so old-fashioned and conventional, yet make them seem new and scandalous, escapes me completely. That, I cannot imagine!
There are other “aunties” who are overtly friendly, treating anybody with any imagination as a non-adult- they’re right in that- and some who hold nothing but admiration in their wide, lollypop eyes, for any overtly imaginative non-adult. This can act as an irritant. Stay away, stay safe.
Then there are those sixty-plus denizens who act like they know it all… well, maybe they do know it all. But in that case would anyone please explain why they scoff at every attempt at something new that does not confer with their immediate surroundings?
It’s sad to imagine – pun intended – that there are more adults than non-adults in existence. No wonder the earth is slowing down – there are so many precipitated heavy-headed terrestrial specks on its surface who add to its moment of inertia. (Please do not give me those lost looks. You can check up any class XI Physics textbook for an explanation).
Allow me to break free from my earlier wow and infer: Adults are the worst things to have happened to the planet. Now, for all their lack of imagination (I mean, all they care about is money, money, money, power and few other things I’m not allowed to mention), they are set on destroying it using such base means.
However, I’m not implying that I’m all for an adults - vs. - non-adults war. Honestly, I detest wars… don’t solve much in the long run. Anyways, it’s an invention of very primitive unimaginative adults. It’s even started to infect us kids.
All I want to imply is that… I beseech you Oh! Great, Mighty, Experienced Grown-Ups of the world! See the Sun, smell the lilies and gaze out at the blue sky, everyday!
How else would you differentiate yourself from rocks, the trees and the wind?
So in conclusion, I do not blush or feel abashed in admitting that maybe… I wouldn’t really mind being bitten by a vampire right now (as is depicted in America’s latest fictional craze “Twilight”) and stay seventeen forever.
But of course, I do not expect many of you to be able to imagine that either!
By Priyanka Das
Class-XI
New Delhi
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