requiem for a DREAM....

It was a great opportunity to prove myself, in the whole life. I have been burning mid night oil to prove myself this time. This opportunity if I prove myself this time, would let me open to my the one dream I have been dreaming from long time. This opportunity is no more than a preliminary but I am in trans because of the fret of proving my worth in this preliminary which would lead to my actual reverie which I am desperate to make it real. I was all done with my preparation for it . I lived dreaming about it, working on the dream until I was content that if I get a chance I have the worth to prove myself. I had ample occasions of breaking the ice swiftly but as the routine part of my life , I let the opportunities slip away from my hand. Encapsulating my thoughts , hard work , and passion would be a very difficult thing, in fact impossible. In fact , I am a more of a day dreamer , because I try to live life myself, my way. That is I analyze things in my way, feeling the element of success every time I get reminded of my passion.

It was the D day I have been waiting for the long time. I woke up dreaming the same dream again and again . I was content with the home work , I have done for this assignment but was feared of losing the things narrowly. This is because I have missed hell of a things narrowly. So I didn’t want to take any chance when I am so close to my dream .

I woke up with my eyes resisting a lot ,to see the world and for the day I have been dying to see. I went to wash basin , tapped and spilled the water heavily upon the face trying to throw out the every lethargy to recharge myself with complete spirit. My thoughts were completely dominated only with my dreams ,dreams and dreams, which if I do well may come out true. The vision of accomplishment was appearing in my eyes.

I took out my bike and started the engine. I was going at a brisk pace listening to my favorite tracks on a rush road. I was 4 to 5 miles short of my destination. I looked at the watch and felt that I was getting late. I accelerated the bike to around 90 kmph , while in the middle of the road , there was a boy of around ten with some wrappers in his hand. I tried to avoid the boy off from my vehicle , but I was too fast to avoid him.I gushed the bike into the boy and couldn’t help out. I felt very much gulity .The boy was bleeding profusely and I hadto decide between my dreams and the boy’s faith , both of which were completely in my hand. I just gave a thought and decided to take the boy to the hospital. I took the side of humanity in front of insanity, that is my long lived dream. The boy got heavy wounds on the leg and was bleeding profusely. I took him to the nearby multi specialty hospital.The doctor was treating the boy and I decided to take the boy along to his home.

I was a bit grim for losing over my dream.I had prepared for it from the past one year and I couldn't show up this year.But there was a feeling of satisfaction as I was doing some good instead of it.The boy regained normalcy by the next two days.

I had a nice chit chat with the boy. His father was a local farmer and he committed suicide last year because of the unpaid debts. His mother makes some local munchies , which the boy sells to make both the ends meet. By the time he told about himself and his family , we reached his home.It was a small space roofed with plastic sheets and the space was just enough for three people to sit up. After listening to them , I came back home at around 8 in the evening.Some of the thoughts of them were undigestable.I was thinking about them the whole night , instead of thinking about my dream which I do very often.

It’s a vicious cycle. A boy goes to vernacular school because his father is a farmer and can not afford expensive English school for his son. Then his son is not allowed to write the final exams because of school fees which remains unpaid due to bad crop this year and due unseasonal rains because of global warming. The farmer is under 3 lacs debt and finds it impossible to make ends meet, thankfully he has a bottle of pesticide which he drinks due to helplessness and government ‘s mismanagement of funds. He dies, his son now is a school dropout but he cant follow his father’s profession because there is no money to restart all over again nor can he end his life like his father because who would look after his mother and 4 young siblings.

The mother makes good local snacks so he somehow manages to borrow few hundreds and asks his mother to make snacks like khakra, chakli, namakpaare etc, which he carries every morning and sells door to door in the city but hardly any one buys it. It not hygienic nor does it have any of those fancy packing. He one day goes to this girl’s house in the city who like the other munchies and refuses to buy it because she prefers “Lays” potato chips over “khakras”. She works in a call centre, speaks English, earns 20 thousand a month and feels proud to be a part of “India Poised, India Shining, India Rising” She feels proud because she is a part of this young and happening crowd of India’s “Generation Next” . She earns for the Americans and then she spends her money on Lays, Coke, Nike shoes and Swiss Spas. Her mom any way has to cook dinner because even if she also is a part of “India Shining”, she at the end of the day has to cook dinner for a family of 4 no matter how tired she is, the dinner must be served hot and fresh. So she goes to the vegetable market and thinks of going to this vegetable selling lady who happens to be the farmer’s widow (the widow decided to sell vegetables like potato, green chili, lemon, ginger etc to support the family after her husband committed hara kiri) . But the lady on her way to this vegetable selling lady happens to see a new super market which claims to sell everything under one roof at a very affordable price. And it looks posh also. So she changes her direction towards that super market leaving this widow vegetable seller waiting for another customer who would prefer to buy vegetables and other groceries as it used to be in the olden days.

This super market is an American chain and looks stylish. People are flocking it because end of the day a wife still has to cook and clean after the board meeting is over. The hard earned money of their husbands are spent on these super markets and the American owner thanks Indian middle class for their generosity for making this American owner more rich.

In the mean time the American super market owner with money earned from Indian middle class tells the Indian Government that it wants to open more retail chains. So the Government which has been elected only by 50% of Indians by will and rest 50% by booth capturing and not elected by people who think voting is a waste of time, election day is a holiday so might as well go for a picnic, who work in call centre and do not get time off to cast vote and the call centre cabbies who have to drop the staff to the company (so many votes wasted) . So this Government procures land in the name of SEZ and retail boom and development and gives it to this American owner at a very affordable price. This land is procured from farmers by making false promises to them, because in any case the farmer would eventually commit suicide and the sons would sell silly stuffs like khakra and not use the farm land to make a living. The widow would need a hospital when she would grow old and frail but there would be no hospital because the land has been given to someone else in the name of “Development”. The boy now would need night shelter to spend chilly nights because he had to sell his house also, but there would be none available, no “anganwadi” available for his young siblings also. There would no free schools also because all land has been given away for making roads to accommodate more cars, more malls, parking spaces, amusement parks, call centers etc. But what to do life goes on, so this boy gets married like the so many out there, have children like the so many out there but where would all the children live? They need houses. So lets cut the forests and cover the sea to make way for our houses and get land and more vacant land. So the tiger dies, the cattle survives and eats more and more grass lands making it bald, barren and lose. So next year of “India Shining”, people die due to land slide, commit suicide because of unseasonal rains and floods, famine, droughts. But the super market building does not crumble due to any of these natural invited calamities as it is made of stuff which are made in Japan. But the American owner decides to try some other market because people here are no longer spending and making him rich since they are more busy settling their lives after all these disasters. So the retail shop, call centre closes down, people lose jobs and the government does not have enough grains in the grainery to feed the hungry because the farmers who were the “Annadatas” had committed suicide long before and their sons dread to continue the same profession.

I was completely disturbed in my thoughts .When would the India really move forward ? When would the disparity end between rich& poor? When would the social barriers in this society die? To me, there is only one solution to this long running problem……

THE YOUTH……….

They have the potential to knock out the problems India has been facing.