Thursday, August 6, 2009

Of Childhood Dreams

Remember the time when we were kids, all our dreams. We wanted to grow up to be an astronaut, find a prince or princess, help the world, be a hero, live the luxurious life. So many dreams criss crossing unbound.


But as we grew up we found that our dreams had some scenes missing, like working hard for getting into a medical college and competing against a few lakh others,or that your prince charming who you eloped with leaving your family behind sells you off to a brothel in mumbai. The young kid who saw his pop toil the fields and imagined growing up to be a fine farmer never had thought he would one day as a grown up be drinking insecticide because of the unmanageable debt he was in from failed monsoons and the loan for his daughter's wedding.

We didn't imagine these in our dreams did we?

So was our childhood a cruel joke, setting us up for stuff that was never meant to be?


Life can be cruel, admittedly. The more I see around the more I believe in that. As kids we dreamt of what we wanted, life showed us the challenges to get there. What i've also seen is that the people who are really really what I would say been unjustly treated are the ones who manage to learn to live with life, to be able to dream the dreams which they had as kids, as adults also.



This post comes from me looking back and seeing where life has been nice to me and where it has been nasty and to compare that to others. I mean look at us, we weren't born on a street with our mothers begging for milk, no landmine blew up our arms and burnt our faces, no nurse turned the valve of oxygen on my baby destroying most of his brain.

I have come to realize that all the crying most of us do, if we ever saw what some people have gone through and showed life the finger and still managed to hold onto their dreams, would be ashamed and feel like spoilt brats

Face it, its not that we weren't meant to dream, just that we can either fear what life is gonna throw at us and sulk, or we go get our dreams.

13 comments :

Anonymous said...

me first to comment !! yayyy :)
n yes im still a kid...proud to be one :) guess a lil one exists in all of us..hope is definately wht keeps us going...
im so in love wid ur writing !! :)

Debasish Patra said...

"So was our childhood a cruel joke"

...i dont want dis line to be true.
Good writeup!

Miss OverThinker said...

what a beautiful post.. something I plan to come read a few times over.. you have given us quite a lot of things to think about..

Anonymous said...

Hmm, I wrote a similar sort of 55 fiction once. I get where you're coming from. But if we lose our capacity to dream, what do we have left?

Americanising Desi said...

thank u for openin my eyes :)

Mrinalini said...

aah, the words of reality hit me hard again :)
well yes, u are right..we cant afford to sulk when there is so much sadness around..ur post reminded me of Gandhi's talisman :)

Insomniac said...

No, I dont think that our childhood was a joke.. We dream.. Our dreams shatter.. We weave new dreams.. Thts how life moves on.. Thts how we move on..

First time at your blog.. Some interesting writing.. Wil be back

siras said...

We can be so ungrateful, can't we

Anonymous said...

Brilliant post! :)

It's so easy to bitch and moan about how we cannot achieve or attain something without ever realising what and how much we have. I guess we as humans are very selfish, and for the most will choose not to realise our truths.

I wrote a post on dreams a few days ago - check it out!

Sparkling said...

Life is a journey no doubt, and I've already invested in my Nike's.

Yeah! I'm embracing life every day :)

sanely insane said...

@Ivy...yes rockstar u r :P

@Debashish...and it isnt... :)

@rookie...just read it once and never look back :)

@Ki...empty sleep :P

@AD... :)

@mrinalini..funny thing is the ppl wid real tragedy seem to have learnt to b happy and to dream

@incurable not before i hit yours :)

@siras...if we werent how wud i have written this post :P

@cookie...aye aye sir..checked

@Sparkling...i'm still abusing my old adidas :P

sayrem said...

there come certain people, with cruel reminders,and loh! what awareness they bring.

Tazeen said...

what if you never had dreams to begin with?