Once Upon A Time... Poem by Gita Ashok

Once upon a time,
“Once upon a time…”
was what every child loved to hear.
It was what every adult loved to say.

“Once upon a time…”
then caused such a flurry of excitement…
all eyes, ears and minds were aligned in rapt attention.
Whether “Once upon a time…” was
read aloud from a book or
created on the spur of the moment,
it kept a child’s mind captivated for hours
in a whole new exciting world.

But what has happened today?
“Once upon a time…” has become
yet another cliché; extinct like many other things.
No child seems to be excited
to know what happened “Once upon a time…”.

“Once upon a time…” has now become
boring and old-fashioned -
thanks to the cruel invasion of technology.
Alas! “Once upon a time…” has now become an elegy.

Once upon a time,
“Once upon a time…” soothed a crying child.
It was a soporific for a restless one;
a bribe for a fussy one.
It sobered a naughty one
and rewarded a well-behaved one.

Chatting, gaming, texting and tweeting
have now reduced it to redundancy.
The television and the internet –
the offspring of technology
are certainly its sworn enemies.
Children are engrossed in surfing television channels
and socializing on Facebook, Orkut and the like
that they have no time absolutely for “Once upon a time…”

Robbed of their childhood innocence,
creativity and imagination,
children morph into adults even before entering their teens.
And they want to be adults without any responsibilities.
If only we could go back
to “Once upon a time…” again,
We could all live happily ever after again.

30/7/2010
9: 45 am