I am reminded of famous Raj Kapoor movie Mera Naam Joker, where an immortal song sung by Manna Dey, ayy bhai zara dekh ke chalo, has a couplet in the Antra carrying profound meaning about the stages of life -childhood, youth, and old age. All these stages ultimately need to be synchronised in a way that all, till one attains the only reality of life – the death. All these stages are passed wonderfully, without frets and fevers, which is possible only when we develop an attitude to make it happy and take things in lighter mode, like the children who in the first stage of their lives keep on learning from the mistakes; and their pure minds do not have the dots of jealousy, anxiety, stress, and envy. But as children grow things become situational, and that is the greatest reality we realise at later stages. Wordsworth in his famous poem has used similar expression that child is the father of the man ….
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety
Wordsworth wants to say that present is the outcome of past. According to him, the child grows up and becomes a father. Manhood is an outcome of childhood. So, the poet says this statement. This paradox might have a different meaning. The poet might have said that the child is innocent. We can learn many things from the child who never lies. In reality, we try to learn from father. We can also say that a man can be younger by age but may be more matured by the mind that is what the poet wants to express through this paradox.
That is why as a dreamer and a person of positive outlook the poet expresses the same joy and enthusiasm in seeing the rainbow through his poem as a grown up as he used to when he was a child. He too expects that in the future he will also keep on maintaining the child like behaviour or else he will be dead. Thus, the poem emphasizes upon the influence of childhood, childhood traits and characters in the life of a man and the way they too get reflected in youthful, adolescence and in later phases.
When we are children we dream of growing up to be adults. When we reach adulthood, the stress of life makes us wish we were back to being a kid, and when we are in the fag end of life there is little time left to act, behave, and own the childlike attitude. Through age we may gain wisdom but the greatest loss is in terms of childlike passion for living.
So it is very important to tap into our inner child just a little more only, then the journey of life could be more smooth and hassle free.
In contemporary times the idea of judging the behaviour of a person is based upon the childhood he/she has lived. Child is the bud that embodies thousands of possibilities, hopes of a future man. Like the fate of the flower is embedded in the bud, the future man is shaped in his childhood.
Society in contemporary times requires child like attitude of remaining open and stress free. Missing these childish attitude of a clean heart and open mind people suffer from jealousy, and anxiety. That is why, perhaps, Wordsworth enjoyed the child inside him as that child was free, agile, energetic, inquisitive, enthusiastic and nature loving.
Hence, everyone should keep the child inside them alive forever. Along with that, the children of today should be protected, cared and nurtured properly so that they become future hope of society of tomorrow. Thus, protection of children and their childhood are essential for a prosperous, progressive and healthy society.