Those days, we kids couldn’t drive cars with a tap on a mobile phone. So, what did I do?
I took my trusty tricycle to a corner of the house next to two windows, and tilted it. One of the two rear wheels was the steering. The window in the front was the windscreen, the other my side window. I leaned out with a hand signal at every ‘turn’. There were also those dramatic vroom-vroom and screeching-brake sounds. It was all in my head, but it felt so real.
Even today, when I’m actually at the wheel of my car, it’s those images that fill my mind.
Dreams are the map and the destination. They are somewhere far away, and urge us to keep going. They pull us along.
Back when we were growing up, we were asked, “What’s your ambition?” We had our favourites; mine was 'train driver'. Decades later, for my son it was 'astronaut'.
HOW THEY EVOLVE
Dreams aren’t static. They change with time. My father listening to the news on All India Radio (now Akashwani), quietly kindled another dream in me. I pictured myself “right where the news happens”, and being part of all those big and small moments I heard about on the radio.
THE PLEASURE OF CHASING IT
There are still plenty of dreams. They don’t end, do they? But what I have learned is: it’s not really about the dream as a shiny trophy locked away in a glass case. It’s about the journey: the hope, detours, tiny moments, those emotions.
They don’t have a form. They can’t be displayed for everyone to see. But that’s what gives the journey its colour, and fills the heart, as you look through the windscreen, imagined or real.
They are actually bigger than the dreams!
Very true. We imagine it, and then we go after it. But what we want changes as we change.
ReplyDeleteThat's true!
DeleteAs I read I nedded and thought yeah I get
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteHow about linking to to the journalistic writing you are most proud of? A big or small story, no matter What you think you wrote really well.
ReplyDeleteYes, Andrew. I see dreams not as just one goal in life. They are like little goals, what I look forward to, and what I achieve. Yes, even stories; even a blog post, for that matter!
DeleteI could relate to your early ambition for i too as a chit wished to be a steam engine driver pulling down the chord to make a long whistle and watching the break of dawn as the train sped speedily.I used to feel proud that the train cannot leave without me when i have a cup of coffee at IRR!
ReplyDeleteWhile not all the childhood dreams would be desirable or achievable, yet dreams, as we grow, motivate us to look forward for better things.
I enjoyed the post very much.
Hi KP - Thank you! Yes, dreams are like a sort of motivation!
DeleteTalking about All India Radio and News broadcast, I am sure you must have heard about Melville de Mellow. My dad used to say he will come to read the English news at 9 pm every day. The entire country will be waiting to hear his voice. “This is All India Radio and the news read by Melville de Mellow”. On some days when the news was read by someone else at 9 pm, 50% of the audience would turn off the radio immediately.
ReplyDeleteI was too young when Melville de Mellow read the news at 9 pm. My father has told me about him. He was the one who did the commentary for Mahatma Gandhi's funeral.
DeleteMy earliest memories of a news reader are of Surjit Sen. He too had a good following, though not like that of Melville de Mellow.
Life would be poorer without dreams. They may not be ambitions, but they take us out of our daily routines.
ReplyDeleteVery true!
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteAnother way of putting this is that we visualise then attempt to realise; to name these thinkings only as dreams is, perhaps, to belittle them, make them seem impossible. A shame, when in fact, anything and everything is possible, given the chance! YAM xx
Hi Yamini - It depends upon how we look at it. I don't know; probably, dreams are those that are within our reach; or maybe that are really difficult to get to.
DeleteDreams, one after another... What would life be without them!
ReplyDeleteHi Tomi - Very true!
DeleteI think when you stop dreaming, you stop living.
ReplyDeleteHi L & L - Very true!
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