Innocence Revisited............!!

I asked her name. She muttered something that I couldn’t quite understand. I asked her again. She looked away from me in a nonchalant manner.

Children here usually develop their own personality at a very early age. They have an aura of adult-ness in them. I don’t remember observing children very closely in Bangladesh. Do they also grow personality at a very young age? The precocious growth of personality in children here in the west must be something entirely cultural. They are usually taught to be independent and somewhat individualistic from a very young age. But I am quite prejudiced in favor of how we do things in Bangladesh, especially in societal contexts. I guess I would like children to act like children, with a bit of vulnerability and a lot of childlike innocence. Vulnerability is endearing. We love heroes in the movies because we project our own vulnerability onto them. We love it even more when we see them winning in the end; even with their apparent vulnerability, they are somehow invincible.

Which one is better - children with adult-like personality or adults with childlike innocence?  There aren’t many adults with childlike innocence anymore. The world is a dangerous place for them, so they have slipped into extinction.

I am onboard a public bus in Vancouver. I haven’t quite acclimated myself with “journey by bus” yet as driving a car for last few years in the USA somewhat spoiled me. I have now learned to appreciate the comforts of an upper-middle class settled lifestyle. But then I come from a lower middle class family in Bangladesh. So riding the bus – bus full of sweaty people and a quarrelsome conductor - is nothing new to me. My most enduring experiences of bus-ride were when I used to take Chaitaly bus from Dhaka University to Mirpur – mostly in my first year at Dhaka University. There were very few days that I didn’t fall asleep in the scorching heat and the accompanying commotion. Ah! Those good old days! 

I took my seat at the back of the bus. I need to go to downtown for a personal business. Fourteen school kids – yes, I counted them one by one – were welcomed onboard by the bus-driver at the next stop. The kids were accompanied by two adults – I guess they were their school instructors – and ushered to the back of the bus, very close to me. I kept my backpack on the seat beside the one I sat on and characteristically forgot about it. This little girl that I asked the name of held tight the upright rod with a sense of equanimity. She looked away from me. I kept smiling at her every time she stole a glance of my surroundings. But she kept refusing to smile back. I asked her name. She did pronounce something that I couldn’t quite understand. I asked again and she didn’t appear interested in a conversation. I offered her the seat that my backpack was occupying. She wouldn’t take it. Her instructor requested too but she wouldn’t budge. She appeared lost in thoughts while looking out as if she weren’t looking at anything particular.

I tried to focus on a question of my Econometric Theory assignment that I couldn’t solve last night. Being out of school for about two years and then starting a PhD in finance is quite challenging. But challenge is good, as free market champions would like us to believe. I have long held a soft corner for welfare economy, due, possibly, to an innate sense of economic and social justice. The modern (capitalistic) economic theory vehemently opposes welfare economy and blames the stagnation of Japanese and many European economies on their adoption of welfare economic system. The other day my microeconomic theory professor proved mathematically why free market is the best economic system available. Canadian economy has long been labeled as a “near-socialist” economy by the right-wing politicians and their supporters in the USA. As I will be here inshaa Allah for the next few years, I hope to get to see and compare the boons and woes of the welfare economy. For now, I don’t like the discomfort associated with living without a car! Now I understand why rightists love free market as if it were their religion and their salvation depended on the protection of capitalism from all evil eyes!
   

The public bus system in Vancouver, besides being a signature gesture of welfare economy, is also a perfect example of monetizing and penalizing the negative externalities. In economics, “negative externalities” refer to the social costs caused to the third parties. Car owners derive “utilities” from driving fancy cars but the pollution they cause harms everyone! Therefore they must bear the costs of harming the people in general and need to pay more for fuel, a portion of which will go towards maintenance of the bus system, a public good, so to say.

Few minutes comfortably vanished into the past and I regrettably grew older by those few minutes. Then the bus applied brake abruptly and the girl was almost falling down. But I managed to catch her. She looked at me again in few seconds. I smiled and gave her an approving nod. She smiled back. I could figure that her initial reservations vanished away. I offered her the seat again and she agreed to sit, at last.

“How old are you?”

“five” she said.

“what’s your name, again, please?”

She muttered “Jenny” or “Jelly”. It should be Jenny, I figured out. She is Chinese-looking, with very small eyes and a flat nose. She had too strong a personality for a child aged five. Next twenty minutes I passed very good time with this angel named Jenny. When I rose from my seat to get down from the bus, she appeared a little bit sad; and so was I. Human beings get attached so easily, I wondered. 

Upon getting down, I faced a beggar – or panhandler as they are known in the States – and I felt euphoric! Whenever I see anything in the USA or Canada that is very similar to what we see in Bangladesh, I feel very happy. It makes me feel that we are not so bad, after all! 

I finished my task within an hour and half and took another bus to go back to my campus. I ran into one of the instructors that I met earlier. I ran fast towards the back and saw Jenny and her friends again. They were done with their visit of a museum and their instructors were taking them back to the school. Jenny recognized me and grinned at me, an unusually big grin for a kid with personality. She asked me to sit beside her. I didn’t object. She was very cheerful this time and shared with me her experiences at the museum.

When her turn came to get down from the bus, she shook her hands with me and followed her classmates to the front of the bus.  

Upon getting down, she looked at me through the window. I smiled at her; she smiled back.

No, I didn’t notice any adult-like personality on her face, not anymore.

Her face was rather covered with a bit of sadness. And a lot of innocence, heavenly innocence.

All children are the same - I whispered to myself - all are like Bangladeshi children, except that some appear to have a strong personality in the beginning that only vanishes into heavenly innocence in the end.

The world remains to me as mysterious even to this day as it was when I was first born! 

(Previously published in Monthly Market Pulse.)