What's in a name!!

The other day I took Anirudh to the park in our residential society. He took along his flying disc. For a whole we both played on together. Soon he spotted 2 little girls watching intently and interestingly at our game.

So I asked them if they would like to join us. At first they both said no feeling a bit shy. So I again asked them to join us saying "Mazaa aayega. Aayo khelo." (It will be fun. Come, join us.) One of them decided to play along and joined us. It took less than one minute for the other one to also come in the group and to start playing together.

After playing for less than 2 minutes I had to say something to one of those girls but since I didn't know their names, I was about to ask them. But before I could, I heard Anirudh calling out 'Dost! Aise nahi karte! Aise karte hain!" (Friend, don't do like this. Do it this way) Basically the girl was not throwing the disc properly and Anirudh was telling her how to.

But I was amazed how he just didn't feel the need to know their names. Calling them 'dost' (pal/friend) was good enough for him. And I just smiled at him.

And then it made me think its us adults who hold a curtain of inhibitions in making friends easily, talking to them, the need to know the names. And that we should learn this trait back from kids. Yes, learn it back. A trait that we lost somewhere, somehow on the road to adulthood.