Gems from a child sociologist

Hardly three feet off the ground, little Thisuri Thevindi last week looking rather annoyed had a tall order for me.

"Auntie, I listen to what you say. Now you must listen to me."

Wanting to tell me all about her hurt over mum's firm handling while she summersaulted on the spotlessly clean bed, Thisuri demanded I listen to her tale of woe and even insisted I stop talking to mum.

That finished, on another day she went on looking quite puzzled:

"Auntie, when you enter a house who should you first talk to - children or big people?"

This I thought was more than a hint for, unwittingly, I tend to greet Nayana first on my arrival in their home.

Thisuri's pint-size is no match for her giant intellect. She would argue to the point of even driving me up the wall. I must admit defeat in the face of childhood intellect.

Thisuri's utterances are in no small way a reflection of a larger picture. In the first she called for what mass communication specialists would refer to as, "participatory Communication" - a two way type characterized by mutual listening - certainly not the one way, linear, top-town flow. Partnership and mutual respect was her plea - a far cry from hegemonic control which example is emulation worthy by even George Bush himself.

If in childhood Thisuri is thinking on lines of mutual respect and a spatial entity for airing her views, let it be hopeful assurance it would remain so even in adulthood. Thisuri is not alone in this and is just one of the many fighting for a place on earth. Her voice is symbolic of the many hundreds of thousands wanting a fair deal.

In a world where the strong overpower the weak, Thisuri symbolises the marginalized, oppressed, the isolated and all weaker segments coming off structural diversity. By expressing herself loud and clear she no doubt emanates those torrid goings on in the minds of weaker soual segments.

She knows next to nothing of the sociologists fad word, 'egalitarianism' so repulsive to system upholders yet she articulated the egalitarian concept very strongly in the simplest of words characterizing a hard to come by childhood.

She signified in no small measure what I, only in university learnt was the hermeneutical experience which demands the same respect you give yourself be given to the one talking to you by way of mutual listening, tolerance and understanding.

Irksome indeed is the thought of how such a child would fit in to a grotesque system where self-mindedness supersedes whatever is selfless. Where high degree individualism overtakes collective consciousness. Where values are underrated for personal glory.

Who knows, Thisuri may not be the only one of her type among those of her chronological years but certainly she I presume belongs to an entity far less in numerals.

What needs to be done is to tap that centrifugal force (as referred to by Saint Martin Lings) in each individual unit and spread it far and wide into the periphery so that Thisuri and her like would finally comprise a much saner and value filled social entity.

If left untended it will be to that great poet's credit;

'Many a flower is born to blush unseen

And waste its fragrance in the desert air.'