Yesterday, I read a book to my son. It was a beautifully illustrated ebook that we both flipped through on my tablet. The book is about a day in the life of seven different children living in seven different places around the world. Seven names, seven faces, seven countries, seven cities…told in the first person, each child introduces themselves, talks about where they live, what they eat for breakfast, where they play, what their school is like, and many other facets of their daily lives.

I think he enjoyed it, though it became a bit verbose for him from time to time. When I downloaded the book, I had imagined that he would be fascinated by the different cultures, environments, and places shown in the book. However, he wasn’t.

What he noticed most were the things in this order: the ages of different children and how they compared to his older cousins, the fact that one of the children didn’t have to wear a uniform to school, the yellow school bus a child takes (the same as the one in his favorite song), the ice skating another child does, the five cats of another child (he asked me to get a cat for him as well), and the one child whose evening activity was watching television (he made sure that I noticed that other children are also allowed to watch TV).

What he didn’t notice was: The color of the children’s skin, their gender, the fact that some children were rich, and some not so much, whether they lived in a city or a village, in an apartment complex or in a mud hut.

He’s going to be four in a couple of months, and I’m afraid of the day when these differences will start seeping into his consciousness. Perhaps we wouldn’t need our DEI conferences, mandatory corporate trainings, amendments, laws, marches, and fights if we all kept our four-year-old selves alive within us.

Thank you, dear Adwitiya, for letting me look at the world through your eyes. It definitely looks like a much ‘equal’ place.

Wishing everyone a Thanksgiving filled with warmth and reflection.