I read this newpaper article today morning which establishes that children do have a very real imaginary world and that actually facilitates development of various mental and logic faculties. A link of which is below:
Sure, I was relieved because K~ has always displayed extremely high indulgence in her own imaginary world, infact as early as a one year old toddler. I assume her imagination must have existed even before that but chronologically she was not physically and mentally equipped enough to express that. As a parent, I never bothered most of the times when she would be yapping non-stop into the thin air, but I must admit having eerie feelings when she refused to recognize me if I ever intruded in her world, probably to feed her or change her and would shoo me away locking the door behind her in utter disgust.
The first instances of K~ losing herself to imagination started when she was a year old. She would clutch to the telephone reciever and squeak, grunt and laugh for lack of proper speech .... which would continue for spells lasting alomost 15-20 minutes. I was amused at such behaviour especially when she would stop responding to my real conversation as if she was completely lost into the other person whom she was supposedly speaking with.
She made imaginary friends, mostly girls with whom she would be playing all her favourite games .... doll house, cooking and buying things. Later, she involved imaginary bad characters, mostly boys .... Akshat, the naughty classmate, Shopkeeper, the cheat, Sly and Gobo, the ill characters of Noddy stories ....... and she would win over them each time with the help of her girlfriends. In the best of her moods, I would enact her girlfriends and her father would be forced to enact Akshat, Shopkeeper, Sly and Gobo .... poor Papa to be screamed at, manipulated and in some cases beaten up and sent away ..... remorselessly!!! Ha!
K~ learns and performs better in her imaginary world. I remember her opening three homework copies and distributing it to her imaginary classmates whenever she sits down to do her own. She would be giggling with them and complaning to Me, of course the Bhawna Madam, her teacher about Akshat having soiled his underwear or scribbled all wrong things on her notebook. What fun she derived out of me screaming and punishing those boys! She would quickly finish her homework and whatever I would teach her with rapt attention to beat all her imaginary classmates. I would be surprised at times with her abilities to learn and comply .... it still continues even today for the benefit of her fast grasping and easy teaching style .... and of course FUN !
Enacting stories is another manifestation of her very strong imagination. She would dress up with toy crowns on her head to become Snow White or the well dressed Cinderella, tie torn towels around her waist to become the ill treated Cinderella. She becomes so involved enacting those stories that everything seems real then .... the dressing mirror turns into the magic mirror, the garden twig into a magic wand, her Bata shoes into dainty glass shoes, toy house into the magic carriage to carry her to the palace. She would herself do the bit of ugly characters too like step mothers, Wolf or Rumpelstiltskin. Dialogues would flow out effortlessly in perfect English and she would grasp for breath in between .... she would be falling short of air owing to her playing and changing into characters so quickly. There is some kind of a magic in the air ....
And when its all over .... she would come looking for me and hug around me tightly to come back to the real world, me being her anchor.
All of this has really helped K~ evolve into whatever she is today ....
K~ imagined writing, and she learnt her first alphabets with ease!
K~ imagined skating, and she balanced herself within fifteen minutes at the first go!
K~ imagined speaking, and she speaks with a distinct style of expression, very unlike her age!
K~ imagines reading her by heart story books, and she is learning reading simple words with ease!
What a powerful tool can Imagination be .....
I feel true Imagination has the power to heal, facilitate and bear results if used constructively. It is the door to success and key to all our problems.
For you K~,
I imagine you to be a very Happy person in future, following your true passion and possessing an all round developed persona. I imagine you to be a person, pristine and pure creating happy individuals through your associations and good deeds. I imagine living with you forever and ever and ever......
Amen!!
So true!!! I remember Shilpi , myself and Cheenu enacting cindrella and Snowwhite...coudnt manage the 7 dwarfs so each of us played the role of 2 dwarfs at a time...heee....and poor cheenu was always given the part of cindrella for the simple reason that Shilpi and I could boss her around being the step sisters and step mother :)
ReplyDeleteteacher teacher was the favourite game and ghar ghar would go continue for days ;)
What fun!!! Good old days.
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