Do riot children smell fear in parent’s sweat?

Vivek,

Sorry for the oversight...:)

t,

Thanks! Hopefully the trapeze act will continue to work.

Farzana,

Thanks. This business of little adults think about children is quite a shocker. Considering, so much in the market is specifically targetted at children. And there are very few children`s writers too. At least in our neck of the woods.


BeeJay,

Fear is too common a feeling for anybody who has grown up, and recollects childhood fears. The fear of impending punishment from parents, teachers, the fear of getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar, and mortal fear of being in life threatening accidents, abuses etc. This do not impact identity building, so much as the psyche of the child, and therefore its personality. Identity building, as in being part of a bigger whole, a community, etc is tied to the fear I mean here. The fear is what they`ll overcome, I would imagine, with age. Its binding with religion is what can turn that particular wound septic over the years, especially under communal durress.

Thamizhan,

I share your prayers too.

dost,

Your many have learnt from your partition experiences. It is particularly interesting to hear it from somebody who is the first generation riot child of Independent India. But circumstances differ. A whole lot of other issues, often considered ``larger``, too helped. The re-defining of borders, a ``new`` ``Our`` country. Perhaps, less partisan and more humane treatment of the survivors who crossed to their respective ``countries.`` After all the unbearable suffering, the adults had a ``new`` country, and economic rebuilding was perhaps the only immediate goal. The trauma obviously cannot be overemphasised.

But, in the cases I am discussing, in contemporary India, the ``larger`` issues of geography or national identity do not intercede. It is a more ``ingrown-toenail`` kind of issue, an issue where there is no escape forever, like the Muslim families who moved to pakistan, of the Hindu families who moved to India, there was no promised land of perpetual succour.

It is in these circumstances that riot kids within India, end up being ``sleeper cells`` for extenuating circumstances when communal flareups excite extreme emotions that can become force multipliers for those interested in anti-national/community/society activities. Of course, i am not saying it is a 100 per cent convertion of riot children into potential terrorists or anything. The lack of ``larger issues`` end up messing the internaal debate within India about secularism, majority-minority issues etc.

HN