This is the twenty first article in a series I am writing for the JEANS section of 'The Nation'. The series is for children. Adults consider yourselves warned...you might re-discover a child within you! Scroll down for other articles in this series.
In case you are wondering, yes, there is a flower by that name. Wallflowers are fragrant and come in clusters of yellow, orange, brown, red or purple. They are grown or have become ‘naturalized’ on old walls and cliffs in Southern Europe. We are referring to a different kind of ‘wallflower’ here.
These wallflowers are all over the place. You might not even know they exist
because…well, because they are, simply, ‘wallflowers’. They are not in-your-face. They don’t prance around. They don’t shout
out, ‘here I am, notice me!’ But still,
they are all over the place.
Think about a crowd of people. Think of those in a classroom. Children at play during the school
interval. Children at a party. Think of any such situation. Think of the last time you played with
friends. Now ask yourself who was there
with you. Some names will immediately
come to mind. One or two who stand out, not because they are better or more
beautiful than the rest but they somehow take center stage. Those in the center are naturally
noticed. Those on the sides get
missed.
So we have popular girls and boys in a school or a
class. They are often decision
makers. They set the pace. Others tag along. And in most situations children who don’t
want to feel left behind will gravitate towards those who stand out or are
popular. Everyone wants to be friends
with such children. There’s nothing
wrong in doing that of course. We all
want to feel ‘belonged’ and we all like everyone to see us ‘belonged’.
Now think again. Who
did you miss when you tried to remember people at the party? There must be one or two you just can’t
remember, right? Have you ever wondered
why? Forget that, have you ever wondered
what kind of people they are? ‘Boring,’
did you say to yourself just now?
The thing is that this world is made of all kinds of
people. Some attract attention, some do
not. Some want to be seen and other don’t really worry what the world thinks of
them. Some feel left out if they are not
with the popular people, others are fine wherever they are.
Then there are the wallflowers. They are shy or are seen to be shy. Maybe they are by nature quiet and since they
don’t often voice opinion cease to be noticed by and by. Sometimes they ever earn the tag
‘loser’. Now who would want to associate
a loser, right? Who would want to be seen with one?
But have
you ever wondered what goes through the minds of such people? Plenty!
People who are not busy trying to be ‘in’ with the ‘gang’, people who
don’t chatter all the time so they get noticed, and people who are not invited
to play with the rest do one thing better than most people who tag along so
they don’t feel like outcasts. They
observe. They notice things. They have all the time in the world to ask
themselves questions and come up with answers.
Now it
could be that they too crave attention just like any other child. For some reason they don’t get it and they
don’t know how to get it. But they don’t
fall over and die. They don’t roll up in
a corner and go to sleep. They are
beautiful, these wallflowers. They
perfume the world in their own way. They
have enough reason to feel proud of themselves, even if others don’t think they
do and even if they themselves don’t think they do.
We notice
the roses bursting out of floral decorations, screaming ‘I am pretty, am I
not?’ We don’t notice the tiny flowers
that are in the corner of a garden or are on creepers that cling to a wall.
Sometimes we are so taken up with the roses we don’t realize there are other
flowers, perhaps far more fragrant. We
make ‘not noticing’ a practice and very soon we end up convinced that
‘wallflowers’ don’t even exist.
If you
happen to be a wallflower, smile. There
will always be one or two who will notice you, who will appreciate your color
and fragrance. ‘One or two’ is worth a
million who don’t have the time or the eyes to notice.
And if you
are not a wallflower, talk to one. The
child sitting all alone in the corner of a room or at the edge of a playground
might change the way you see the world.
Other articles in this series
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