The Lost Child

I come from the northeastern state of Tripura. The place where I grew up is a small town 60 km away from the state capital, Agartala. As a child, whenever I saw planes passing by, I stared at them and was deeply fascinated. Who else here wanted to become a pilot as a kid? As a child, I too wanted to become a pilot. It was the awe, the wonder of what the sky would be like. The feeling of flying high in the sky among the clouds with the birds was the dream of many kids like me.

A child is inquisitive. A child wonders. A child asks questions because he or she wants to understand, grasp, and know. A child does not think about becoming knowledgeable but simply wants to know it all. The child was alive in me.

Another thing that fascinated me the most was the vastness of the sky. In school books, I read about the solar system, the universe, and that we only know a very small portion of it. That struck me really hard. I wondered, if that is the case, how do teachers and elders seem to know everything? Why do they behave as if they know it all? They had answers for everything. But the more I asked and enquired, I realized that even they did not know. It was a time when I lost the child in me.

As I grew up, I did not let my curiosity die. I developed an interest in physics and mathematics during my school days, as I believed these were the means to discover the secrets of the universe. I thought only these subjects could tell me what lies beyond. I was decent in academics, and eventually I got admitted to college with physics as my major.

I was eagerly waiting for the first day of college. I was waiting to jump into the realm of physics and wonder. I still remember that first day vividly. I went to college with so much enthusiasm. But by the end of the day, all my enthusiasm and excitement had turned into dust. No one asked questions in class. The professors did not interact; they simply came, wrote on the board for two hours, and left. When I attempted to ask questions, all I received was mockery. My heart sank. I was broken and sad. It was a time when I lost the child in me.

After graduation, I lost all my interest in academics and ventured into a new territory. I started exploring business opportunities. Since 2020, I have started three businesses. I made money but failed to keep any of my ventures afloat. If only I had asked the right questions, if only I had taken the right decisions at the right time, my ventures might have survived.

This year, I finally closed shop and shifted to Kolkata. When I was in school, I had a habit of writing in a diary. It felt good to write down my thoughts. I wrote poems, essays—whatever came to my mind, I simply poured into the diary. It was not that I wrote consistently, nor did I have any intention of pursuing writing seriously.

But one fine day, suddenly, I felt that lost child peeking back at me. I took a pen, switched off my phone, and out of nowhere I started writing again. I kept writing and writing. I was able to give shape to my thoughts.

And you know what happened next?

My first book, Revolution Bharat, was published.

I never thought I would be able to complete the research and writing for the book within just one and a half months. All because I found the child within me.