Once Upon a Time:
The Wonder Year s

Yasra Daud Khoker

As we grow older, we lose the ability to wonder. Big words and big things overshadow the little things that once seemed so big. Logic takes over solutions wrung dry of magic – not the technically sophisticated, ‘rational magic’ that J. K. Rowling taught us, but the erratic one that 1001 Arabian Nights, Panchatantra, the adventures of Amir Hamza, Tales from Brothers Grimm, Mary Poppins and Malgudi Days taught. Searching for hidden treasure in the school playground and hoping to find a secret passageway to a world previously undiscovered, with pristine springs of orange juice and chocolate fountains – everything was imaginable, nothing too ambitious or out-of-reach. Magic was a branch of science that explained anything our minds could not comprehend and as any child will tell you, science makes everything happen. Just like that. If only science dissolved disputes the way a child’s mind did. To rule over the world, all one needed was a magic lamp which when rubbed, coughed out a djinn. No bloodshed, no world wars and rivalries that lasted until the next game of hide-and-seek. The hidden keys to world domination – stickers, postcards, whistles, stamps and little diaries – could be bought at groceries in an avatar called ‘Toy Box’.

These toy boxes were the size of one’s palm and had an assortment of playthings which could only be seen after they had been torn open. The unveiling of its contents was a ceremonious affair attended by other ‘stakeholders’ usually followed by bartering a whistle against a sticker. “Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows”, said English poet John Betjeman. Real-life events registered themselves as overly exaggerated accounts of heroism and daring, not due to a conscious effort, but because they really were as adventuresome and heroic in our minds! That is why, perhaps, the pink cotton candy devoured in childhood was the ‘cottoniest’ of all cotton candy and the old man with one leg really locked children in a dark room. It is very rare for something to transport us into the same universe of fascination today.