Toy story: in abundance, opportunity - Of Several Minds

Commonweal, Oct 25, 2002 by Jo McGowan

Toys are the essence of childhood. When I visit the United States, I am always enchanted with the wonderful things my nephews and nieces have to play with--the charm of their lifelike little dolls and tea sets, the imagination that produces their tool benches and music boxes and those telephones that ring, all so colorful and sturdy, designed to transport them into whatever make-believe world they care to inhabit.

Here in India, it is the children themselves who have to be inventive, creating their own toys out of whatever bits and pieces they can come up with. One favorite is an empty matchbox tied to a piece of string and dragged along behind them as they walk down the street; another a discarded key that forms the basis for a game involving an abandoned castle and an imprisoned maiden.

Much as I admire the resourcefulness of children who know how to make their own fun, I also long for them to have some of the ready-made stuff that our American children take for granted. Because that's fun, too--and seeing the astonishment in their eyes when we open a box full of bright and sparkly surprises from the United States is worth all the trouble it takes to get it here.

Believe me, it isn't easy! I went home in September for my niece's wedding and while there, I gathered up three cartons of toys, books, and art supplies which my sister-in-law, Sally, had collected for me in a drive at her son's school (this was the third time I was carrying stuff back from that same toy drive, and there is still more in Sally's basement!).

Those three boxes were, of course, all excess baggage, and no matter how many times I have done it, my family still sees me off with trepidation and dismay: "They'll never let you on the plane with all that stuff!" they exclaim. "This time, you'll have to pay."

I have stopped worrying. Twice in the last ten years, some real stickler for the rules has charged me, but never for more than one box, and I always have at least three or four. On one memorable trip, I had six, all huge. That time, my sister had sent me down from her home in New Hampshire in a stretch limousine and as I emerged at the airport, feeling very self-conscious, a porter bore down upon me, looking predatory. "First class?" he asked, in a tone that implied there could be no answer but yes. "Economy," I squeaked.

As he loaded one box after the other onto the scale at the check-in counter, the ticket agent looked more and more horrified. "Are these all yours?" she asked finally. "Yes," I said bravely. "You'll have to pay excess baggage charges," she said severely.

"Well," I began, handing her a brochure, "I run this school in India for children with mental handicaps and all these boxes contain toys ..." I could see she wasn't listening. She was reading the brochure, her face going all soft, and when she looked up I knew my problems were over. "Oh, just shove them all in," she said to the astonished porter. "They're toys for her school!"

In India, the same thing happens with the customs officers. "Madame!" one of them said to me sternly this time as I walked confidently through the terminal, trailed by three porters pushing my overloaded trolleys. "Is all of this yours?"

"Yes!" I said, sharing his amazement, but substituting delight for his indignation. "Isn't it wonderful? They're all toys for my school--all donated, and I didn't even have to pay the airline!"

What could he do but agree? Especially since I said it all in Hindi. G. K. Chesterton once wrote that "it is not enough [to] think injustice distressing; [one] must think injustice absurd, an anomaly in existence, a matter less for tears than for laughter." It used to bother me no end to see the average American toy room, filled to the rafters with so many things that a child could hardly walk from the bed to the door without tripping over a Lego table or a Tonka truck. I would fume about the unfairness and the waste and the extravagance of these American kids having everything while their Indian counterparts made do with matchboxes. Then I remembered what Chesterton said: "The optimist is a better reformer than the pessimist; and the one who believes life to be excellent is the one who alters it most."

Since I began celebrating the wonderful good fortune that has given my nephews and nieces all the toys they could ever dream of, I have begun to realize what was always true: they are remarkably generous children. On this last visit home, Liam had a whole box of his beloved Hardy Boys books packed and waiting for me to take back for our children's center library; both he and Patrick had saved their pocket money for several months so I could use it to buy treats for the children in the school. Hannah, Sam, Willie, Sarah, Owen, Sheila, Grace, and Enzo--they are all just waiting to grow up enough to play their part in changing the world.

It is their generosity that keeps filling those cartons with toys and books and games, and the children who never quite grew up at the airline counters and in the customs office who keep seeing that they arrive here intact and for free. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.