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Last week, our friends’ six year old daughter M, spent a morning at our place. To spend the morning judiciously, I got my painting sheets, water colors and crayons out. With no great idea hitting me, I doodled around while M drew flowers and mountains.

Then suddenly out of blue, she asked me, “Are you making an abstract painting”?

My eyes went up in amazement and my ears strained hard to know if I had heard it right, if I had heard a six year old asking me about abstract art.

I asked her, “How do you know about abstract painting”?

She gave me a lucid explanation of how she had once gone to an art gallery with her class and seen abstract paintings.

I couldn’t decide what amazed me more, a six year old in an art gallery, describing perfectly, her trip to a gallery or a six year old connecting that what she was seeing was abstract.

I couldn’t help remembering the time when I was a six year old. I had a schedule packed with attending school, getting back home, playing with friends, eating food on time and sleeping before eight in the night.

I was in first grade, my favorite color was white and pink, and I had recently discovered that the mirror on the wall of my room was too high for me to reach.

My biggest achievement was when I figured out that I could reach the mirror by moving a stool next to the wall and standing on it.

And here I was sitting with a six year old who spent her days attending, not only school but also, piano lessons, dance sessions, singing classes, swimming classes and what not and who knew of the existence of something as vague as abstract painting.

The world had jetted on to the new age, the kids had got smarter, and I had failed to notice it all.

And then just as randomly as it had begun, the moment ended, M asked me for a popsicle and if I would help her color. I was with the child once again and spent the rest of the morning painting all the flowers and all the mountains.