Little Robin

Little Robin was busy. The innocent concentration, with which she was busy, seemed somewhat nice. She was busy watching the ants cross the road.

As the ants reached a tree, they started climbing the it. Robin’s attention went to the java plums (jaamuns). She started to watch java plums roll down from the tree onto the sidewalk. Waited for the next one and let the other one roll down and then next one and then next… Then suddenly she started looking at the way a leaf casts its shadow on the tree trunk.

While all the kids played around Robin quietly watched, not giving any attention to the interruptions which mostly were in the form of some extra-squeaky children playing in the nearby park.

Suddenly her mother came calling and was mad at her for not coming back home on time “Robin you got down from your school bus at 2. What have you been doing?”
Robin looked at her mother with her small black eyes. “Why is everything so specific? So different?”

And her mother said “Because God has made it that way,”

But what did not strike me at that time was that I would behave the same way in case of people. It did not strike me that we can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such specific details. There are little details. So specific. Even indescribable. They are minuter than a person’s smile or eyes.

Robin still hasn’t grown up in that sense. May be she should not. Or should it be otherwise?