I wasn't aware what a scientist was but had been inspired by Dr. Om swaroop in captain Vyom that aired weekly on doordarshan in the late 90's. My classmates made a mockery out of me even though they too knew only the scientists in the superhero shows that went on air in the idiot box every week. The only person in the entire classroom who did not laugh at my answer was our teacher, who walked up to me , ran her hand through my curly hair and said "Good , you will be one if you work hard and never give up". I winked and smiled at her for the support , a drop of tear rolled down my dark cheeks and kissed the widening smile.
That day I heard all kinds of dreams being knit. From Police, doctor, driver, shopkeeper to even shaktiman , thief and fairies were what my mates wanted to be. Several more ended up with the same fate as me, being bullied by others for aspiring to be different.
Fast forward to today and I still carry my dream of being a scientist in my heart but the only obstacle is the endless sea of priorities and responsibilities, which seem to grow substantially with every passing second. My dream seems to be light years away from where they had been when I sketched them initially at 4.
Not just me but every person who falls in to a closed bracket of life has to one day or other, sacrifice or suppress his desires for the better living of his loved ones. This implies not just to dreams, but to everything from food to love. There isn't a man or woman on earth who hasn't tasted both bitterness as well as sweetness sacrifice brings upon.
It's neither our parents nor our society that is to blame. It's just a single taught, a belief that is at fault - The fear of losing what we already have and the fear of failure if we dare to cross our boundaries.
Even if you are not ready to agree , the truth is there are times we fail to complete the dreams we started sketching in our minds when even a little pencil was tough to hold. We blame money, reservations and even at times our luck for what we are today. But at the end of the day we just were too scared to risk everything for what we desired. We just were lazy to put in the hard hours and make a difficult choice when life was being easy to us.
Being 23, I, like all the world just desire one thing going forward in life now, to be settled and have my loved ones to love for the rest of my life. In a of couple years I will reach my goal but will that mean I have achieved what I set out to achieve? Will I be the scientist I visualized when I was four?
Like all of you , I may not complete my sketch that I drew at four but will definitely have a shot at finishing it off till the day I travel to the forever land of dreams named "death". The lone way to complete my unfinished dream is to step out of my comfort zone, the so called settled life and take that little risk of " Dreaming Big" again.
Arjun C....
Comments