Open Letter to Children

Dear Children,

I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. If you were with me, I would love to talk to you about this beautiful world of ours, about flowers, trees, birds, animals, stars, mountains, glaciers and all the other beautiful things that surround us in the world. We have all this beauty all around us and yet we, who are grown-ups, often forget about it and lose ourselves in our arguments or in our quarrels. We sit in our offices and imagine that we are doing very important work.

I hope you will be more sensible and open your eyes and ears to this beauty and life that surrounds you. Can you recognize the flowers by their names and the birds by their singing? How easy it is to make friends with them and with everything in nature, if you go to them affectionately and with friendship.

Grown-ups have a strange way of putting themselves in compartments and groups. They build barriers... of religion, caste, color, party, nation, province, language and customs and of rich and poor. Thus they live in prisons of their own making. Fortunately, children do not know much about these barriers, which separate. They play and work with each other and it is only when grow up that they begin to learn about these barriers from their elders. I hope you will take a long time in growing up...

Footnote:

Above one is an open letter to children of the world by Jawaharlal Nehru through a publication in year 1949, 3rd December. Today marks his birth anniversary, which is celebrated as Children Day in India.