For once, it was refreshing to see the news channels focus on kids keeping aside the usual news about politics, crime and sensationalism, kids being the only form of purity left untouched by these three things. It was Childrens day, the 14th of November.
As is my habit, for a moment, I just went back to good old childhood days and started comparing what I used to do back then, and what kids of today do. A lot has changed for kids from those days. To begin with, the kid I meet downstairs on my way out of my home can actually tell the difference between a Prado Land Cruiser and a Range Rover while, back then when I was his age, a car just meant a Maruti, nothing else. And one wouldn't even want to go down the path of Chacha Chowdhury vs. Playstation, let's leave it there.
Coming back, on most November 14ths, I would spend time preparing a speech on Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister who loved children and whose birthday has now come to be celebrated as Childrens day in his fond memory. A good reason, a great choice, a perfect thing to do - Dedicate a day for children, the future of the world.
In the process of preparing the day's speech, I would rush to the library and.. Wait.. "library", doesn't the word just sound familiar? Isn't that the place where there used to be piles of books, a strict librarian who would warn you at even the slightest murmur? Isn't that the place where 'pin-drop-silence' was maintained in its perfect sense, where even a turn of a page would be heard by every person in the room.
But where is it now? Do today's kids even know what a library is? With the advent of internet and the comforts it has brought with it, the books, the knowledge and the research is just a click away and nobody has to do as much as step out of their house for any information they want, leave alone going to the community library and getting a membership there, the strict librarian again dictating his terms while accepting you in :)
So where is the library now? Is it Wikipedia? Gutenberg? Or the one across the street where the older people are headed during the evenings?
