[Dharitree passed away on 26-11-2026 following a tragic accident. Her loss has deeply affected all of us. She will always be remembered as one of the earliest believers in the Readiot journey. May her soul rest in peace, and may her blessings continue to guide us.]

“All grown-ups were once children-although few of them remember it.”

This is a quote from the novella The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a French author, poet and aviator. It was first published in 1943 and has been translated into numerous languages. Exupery’s The Little Prince is a timeless classic but gravely overlooked and sidelined as mere children's literature. But, this is precisely what the book talks about. In a time where the notion of childhood is losing its essence and imagination is going extinct, the author reminds us to look inward and invoke our inner child, compelling the readers to look at things from the eyes of a child once again.

The narrator meets the titular Little Prince after surviving a plane crash in the Sahara Desert. The Little Prince introduces himself as the sole inhabitant of another planet, much smaller than the Earth, with only three volcanoes, a rose plant and baobab trees. One day, he decides to travel to different planets in search of answers and finally lands on Earth. He starts wandering around conversing with plants, animals and rocks and asks them the most peculiar yet profound questions regarding humanity, loneliness, friendship, love and time, among others. Why is money more desired and valued than human connection? Why is the warfare between sheep and flowers not considered as important as the warfare between two countries? Why are human beings always in such a hurry? Why are they not satisfied in their current state of being? Why is childlike wonder always overtaken by plain, boring “reason”?

The Little Prince is innocent, silly, whimsical and yet, a meditative character. At first, the narrator gets irritated and confused at this wondrous behaviour but soon realizes that the Little Prince is just like his childhood counterpart. The Little Prince’s ability to believe in 2D drawings and his constant need to make a friend out of everyone is somewhat enviable for readers like me. It can be argued that the Little Prince is not just a mere fragment of the narrator’s imagination but a stark portrayal of his inner child that had been lost or repressed for the sake of being an adult. The narrator, stranded in a desert, in his moment of loneliness, was able to connect with his childhood self once again.

Towards the end, we see the Little Prince secretly conversing with a serpent. This scene invokes the biblical imagery of the ‘loss of innocence’ of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden where they too, were tempted by a serpent. It is unclear whether the Little Prince gives in to this temptation but there are significant changes in his behaviour after meeting with the serpent. The ending is just as enigmatic as the Little Prince himself. It is unclear whether the Little Prince disappears willingly, simply dies or returns back to his planet. But this disappearance of the prince is symbolic of the heartbreaking death of childhood or childish imagination. The readers are left with a desire to revert back to their childhood selves, where worrying and reasoning did not exist, where drawings of boa constrictors are not mistaken as hats.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of this book, was also a French aviator whose life in the skies defined his adventurous spirit. He flew dangerous mail routes across continents and served as a reconnaissance pilot during World War II. On July 31, 1944, he vanished during a mission over the Mediterranean, and the remains of his plane were discovered decades later, leaving his disappearance shrouded in mystery.