100 Rays Of Son - 15

The Amusement Park Is Wherever I am

Most of the parents especially stay at home moms or dads will dread summer vacations. “I am bored” is the Mantra of the children repeated so often that it is surprise that they have still have hairs left on their head.

Every day they are at loss on how to entertain the children. Finally they give in and allow children to watch Television endlessly.

With Rayyan, I never faced such an issue, though I have had tremendous problem with Farheena’s boredom which ends up only when I mention what she had thought about initially when she started the boredom song. When I took Rayyan to Byndoor from Bangalore, I was worried with the summer vacation approaching, because I did not know what he would do for two months. Until then, he would have a lot of attention from his grandparents, uncle and aunts apart from me to enjoy his holidays. We had lot of places to visit and activities to do in Bangalore which was completely different from the village environment of Byndoor.

When the first summer vacation began, to my surprise I found Rayyan taking up different projects to entertain himself. One week he would explore and clean the attic. Another week he would plan cleaning up and gardening in the backyard. He enjoyed fetching water for us and also helping others run their errands. He slowly created play areas for him around the place he lived. From trekking early in the morning along with his friends to cycling around the remote areas of town he came up with tons of activities to keep him engaged.

Visits to the beach topped the list. Even as a child, Rayyan would enjoy his time playing around with anything he could find. Long time ago he had also made a hat out of the gift wrapper and box Farheena had received on her birthday and played around wearing it for nearly two years.

One day Rayyan was busy in our backyard for more than 4-5 hours. I could see him from my kitchen window moving around with sticks. I was wondering what is this child doing and when back to check on him I found him sitting calmly in a hut or something he had built for himself and enjoying his space. 

It was a simple thing which brought in tremendous joy to him. Slowly in days to follow, there were lot of children who enjoyed their time in there.

He then built a swing to play and would enjoy that for few weeks. All he needed was a rope which was not in use and some stick laying in the backyard. 

This also slowly became a great attraction to children from our neighbourhood and all were having good time, until a foolish lady decided all by herself that it was dangerous and her children might get hurt and cut if off. Rayyan was very disappointed because he had created it in our own private place, but since the children were his friends who apologized on behalf of their mother he let it go.

When I got to know about this, naturally I was very angry. I wanted to break her TV because I thought her TV was dangerous as well and my children may get hurt watching it. Rayyan stopped me from starting a war by saying, “Maa if we want to, we can make the swing again. But then her children will want to play and they will not be allowed to leading to lot of chaos which I don’t want. It is not a big deal. Let it go.” Now I was angry with Rayyan as well and said, “It is cowardice to let others bully us Rayyan, and I am not a coward like you”. In his usual way Rayyan answered calmly, “Maa being scared of others is cowardice but knowing that you can do something about it yet deciding not to do anything because you value friendship, peace and harmony in neighbourhood takes a lot of courage and strength. That is a bravery of different kind”. Rayyan has always confused me with his views, and most of the times when I am sorting it out in my mind, I calm down. Somehow the matter ended with me not picking up a fight on that day, but the words Rayyan said remained with me strongly. I slowly realized how strong a person he is though on the surface he appears to be very mild and soft.

Even to this day Rayyan believes we need not visit any exotic place or amusement park to have fun. If we want to have fun and enjoy our time, amusement park is wherever we are. Only he knows, how lucky he is to escape boredom so easily.