Remember making paper boats and letting them float down drains in the rain ? Or watching in dismay as the boat got wet, the folds came apart till it was a sheet of paper once more ?
The word “origami” literally means “folding
paper” in Japanese. I am sure we all remember the school days when we made
paper boats to play with in puddles on rainy days and paper rockets to throw
around in class in mock “aerial fights”, the moment the teacher left the room.
It seems that with the advent of electronic
gadgets kids have moved on from these basic skills and simple interests. Why
blame the kids – their parents too, perhaps never bothered about origami after
the television invaded our living rooms.
I still remember some bits and pieces of the art
from my school days and try to show it off to little kids when I get the chance.
The best opportunities can be had during flights – and I always hope I get a 4
to 7 year old as a co-passenger on these flights. They are the most
entertaining of people almost always, and, because they are not mine...
Incident 1 : One evening, while on a two-hour flight, I had
a six year old girl on the seat next to me. I greeted her with a “Hello
Princess” – as we took our seats, and she was so elated she became “my friend
for life” !!
Over the course of the next two hours she told me
about what she watched on TV every day and I told her some stories from my
childhood days, which her Mom sitting next to her was listening with more rapt
attention than her, then the conversation drifted to making paper boats. She
said she could make them – her Mom promptly pulled out an old exercise book
that she currently uses for making things out of paper. She made the boat and I
made her a bird, a fan, a rocket, a basket and some other stuff. She was
mesmerised by the basket – she opened her tiny “vanity bag” and pulled out a
bunch of toffee wrappers. She wound them into little balls and put into the
basket, saying they were flowers !!
I used a couple of those toffee wrappers to make
dancing dolls for her – and her Mom said that from now on she would make them –
she seemed more amazed than the kid. As we were alighting, she said she loved
watching TV more than anything else.
Incident 2 : On another occasion, I had a bespectacled,
five year old boy sitting next to me. He had a little electronic device in his
hands on which he was playing Pac-Man type of games. It took me a while to get
him out of that device and engage in a conversation. He talked about football
and how he hated maths... I tried to get him interested in origami as is my
wont. Asked the air hostess for a few napkins – and they are a poor choice for
origami – to start with. Made him a pom-pom and he was not interested. Made a
rocket. He took it, stood up and let go !! It landed on someone a few seats
ahead. He demanded I make him quite a few – I told him make it himself while I
guided him. He lost interest.
I then made him a basket. He took one look at it,
then walked up to his Mom sitting on the other side of the aisle, and said –
“this is for you, that uncle made it.” Gosh !! If only I had known... And then
he went back to his little electronic games.
I feel we were extremely lucky not to have TV,
Internet, electronic games as kids – we spent our time outside the house, climbed
trees, chased butterflies and dragonflies, followed lines of ants as they went
about their business, stole fruits and flowers from neighbours’ gardens, built
paper boats, flew paper rockets in class, got punished for that, played in
puddles in the rain and got sick, and learnt quite a few skills in the process
– origami being one of them.
Today’s kids have lost out on the joy of creating
new things and feeling wondrous at the world around them – a big loss, I must
say.
