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Last week, one of our funniest Swamijis (Ramakrishnaji) was in town for a Satsang, so I was assigned the task of babysitting kids at a local chapter of the Chinmaya Mission. As I got on with the task of monitoring what I wondered would be a wolf pack of unruly children, I was pleasantly surprised by how they turned out to be a pack of miniature philosophers and pint-sized comedians.

Here I was prepping to take care of kids for a few hours a day, and in reality, I was dropped into a live, unscripted improv show. Honestly, this one had more shits and giggles than my own standup routines lately. More on that later. 😭

To kill time, I had to be creative with my trivia game ideas. I started by asking the kids what they were for Halloween. The older ones were Squid game characters or some went with being Indians (in essence, didn’t dress up that much, their words not mine LOL), and the majority of our 4th to 8th graders were some Marvel character, or the most famous costume of the year probably – one of the K-pop demon hunter girls. Our littlest ones were princesses (obviously) and Minions.

Once these questions warmed up the kids, I divided them into groups. I had the littlest ones sit in concentric circles. I made them hold their hands and drop to the floor gently to arrange themselves in the form of a closed loop. This makes me see kids as the living, breathing wheels of virtues that they are. Unadultarated versions of humanity sitting cross legged and giggling over spilling glue and crumpled crafts.

After asking them what their favorite activities are – crafts, coloring, video games etc etc, I asked them to file into their choice stations. Some little boys were disappointed that we didn’t have a video gaming station. I promised them that will happen next time we meet.

Right around the time I was hustling kids into their respective stations, a 9 year old walked up to me and in all earnest asked, “Can we please have a Brain Rot section, please?” I laughed out loud and yelled, “Why not?!”

As a middle ager, I have no cultural context for what brain rot means, except for I’m happy that someone in 2023 had come up with a word for how our brains are all slowly succumbing to online content.

Soon, I saw kids run around the place making paper planes and flying them – one with even NASA written on it, and that’s when my imagination took flight.

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How was it that kids in the context of forming their social reality were making papers into make believe airplanes, while, us adults are playing with the same paper and calling it “money”? Yuval Noah Hariri talks about it in his book, the Sapiens.

How were these kids not having any trouble staying in the present? They were just living their unscripted lives, as they moved through different stations with spontaneity.

As adults, we often over plan and overengineer small things, missing the natural joy of life unfolding itself. But, watch any child in action – they are always in the moment, thoroughly enjoying the present even if it means experiencing the pain of failure. And that’s why its important for us to not shield them from every discomfort and instead let them embrace their fresh perspectives and adventurous spirit. Of course, within a framework.

Their beautiful spirits reminded me that we must keep defining what success and happiness mean for ourselves. That even in chaos and confusion, there’s one thing that’s clear.

Kids don’t need perfect conditions to thrive. They just need space to laugh, to fail, and to simply be.

From these little hearts, I learned that we can plant our feet on the ground, lead with our hearts and still allow our imagination to take flight. ❤️

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The Indian American Life