I have a dream....

I have a dream. A dream fueled by my will to learn, influence, inspire and possibly educate. I am thankful to my parents who have let me pursue my dreams. They have supported me through everything. I have been fortunate. I have been fortunate to dream. Few have this luxury. Very few are born with silver spoons.

A young boy, hardly 20, works as a security guard at my office. You will know he is a kid, just by looking at him. His father is a security guard too. He had just finished his Technical training exams and was back in our office lobby after a month. So I offered to give him a book to read to pass his time. I was sure, he was not overburdened with work there. I got him Malgudi School Days by R K Narayan an easy & light read to start with. He was overjoyed, and for the next few days he zealously read the book. Every time I passed him, I got a beaming smile in return. It felt good.

Today though was different, the book, which had been lying on his desk every time of the day was no longer there. He called me towards his desk and told me with tears brimming in his eyes, that people don’t even like it that he is reading. He told me he wanted to get out of this place. He wanted to study, become an engineer. He would be quitting soon. I promised him that he could take any help he wanted from me for his studies.

I felt more fortunate at that instance, I saw myself in his tear filled eyes, I imagined what I would have done, if I was in his position. Life had been good to me. There wasn't anything to complain. My ambitions and aspirations might have grown, but I felt I had more to thank for. Things were not as bad as my mind made them to be. I had enough hope with me, enough for me to share it with those without it.

I hope this kid can quit, I hope he can get admission to his diploma. I hope he can live the life, of which I have a dream…..

A phoney story of the poor...

I have a ardent desire of owning the most sophisticated piece of machinery(a mobile communication device) at the cheapest price possible. It is obvious then that there is no such thing as a cheap sophisticated phone, cause I haven't bought one yet. Even if there is some phone that is close to the sophistication I require, it has had some feature that has put me off. Now don't worry, I am not going to ramble on about the various phones available in the market and what I like or dislike about each of them(geeks like me usually tend to act this way so let us be).

But seriously, doesn't this happen to everyone? Do we ever get exactly what we want? Our mind is in constant upheaval thinking, figuring out ways and reasons as to why we need to own a certain thing or disown it. Its a never ending battle between rational thinking and irrational desire. These materialistic aspirations are further fueled by good looking models, movie stars, cricketers; staring out at us from billboards, magazine covers, newspapers, television screens, websites. Everybody seems to be wanting to either sell something to us or promote someone. We are made out to be the deprived, miserable basically poor!

I looked up the word poor on the Internet and found this(and this is what came to my mind):

1. Deserving or inciting pity (Such a pity my current phone is not a dual core)

2. Having little money or few possessions (maybe I should sell my bike to buy the phone)

3. Lacking in specific resources, qualities or substances (my phone has only 10 apps compared to my friends I-phone/Android/BB)

5. Not sufficient to meet a need (A big screen phone will help me read the news on the move as I can't always read a newspaper)

6. Unsatisfactory( My phone has become outdated since the last month!)

7. People without possessions or wealth (considered as a group)(My friends have BBM I need a BB to BBM too!)

Happiness in 'phoney' things...

With so many reasons its hard not fall for temptation and imagine ourselves to be poor! It is as if we have put on dark glasses on our eyes that blind us from reality(like in the 1988 cult classic They live! ) or our senses have been hacked and our body placed in a cocoon which only allows us to dream but never lets us actually realise them-an alternative reality(like in 1999 American blockbuster-The Matrix).

I have stopped myself from buying the latest phone until now by equating its cost with either the amount of books that I can buy (around 1000) or the savings that I can make( you never know when I'll run out of those). But one thing is for certain- eventually I will crack, those pretty people on billboards will get to me, the need for the latest phone will surpass all logic and reason and become an ambition (like some want to own a Ferrari, or a bath tub, or an indoor swimming pool, or just a roof over their heads and a place for them to sleep in).

Eventually I too will act poor !