Follow your dreams.......else your dreams will follow you

“Tadbeer se bigdi huyi taqdeer bana le……Apne pe bharosa hai to ye daw laga le”
- Sahir Ludhianvi

One of the greatest contradictions in life is “what you want to become and what you end up becoming”. You might have wanted to become a singer since you were 10 years old and what you are at 30 is a software engineer working in a MNC like a million others. You had all the time in the world to pursue your dreams but somehow you could not (read it as did not). In school, you thought that getting a rank in the board exams would put your career on track and thereafter you could pursue your dreams of the heart (as opposed to dreams of the mind). So you put your whole effort in the academics, putting on hold many things for the future. And this “academic + professional” life is like the “Mumbai Underworld”. You can enter at your will but cannot leave it on your own terms. So you get sucked in into this quicksand as time passes by. You complete your 10+2 and then move on into engineering. And then to your job. Soon, you are dissatisfied with what you are doing and when you see that the only way (you feel this is the only way as this is the way all your friends have taken) out of this mess is a management degree, you do everything possible under the sun to get yourself into a B school. You spend another 2 years learning the tricks of the trade and then leave with a seven figure salary. You are now happy as you have the financial power to buy all the fancy gadgets that you have always wanted to and stay in that 3 bedroom flat in the most posh corner of the city. You get married and go for that ‘much dreamt about” honeymoon to the Swiss Alps. You are now satisfaction personified and every time you smile, it’s a 32 teeth widescreen one. You are the envy of society and, after years of studies and work and everything, have been finally welcomed into that elite group – “successful”.

But how long can this last. Satisfaction in the materialistic sense is always short-lived. Your needs and desires will never end and no matter how warm your pocket is, there is always something that is going to be too hot to buy. And so the same infinite loop starts all over again and this time, you have your wife and children to give you company and add things to that “I need this” list.......So what happened to your musical career? You had thought that you would go for it once you finished school, but suddenly you realize that you have finished the first half of your life and the one thing that you desired most in your life is still what it was when you began – just a desire. You were so involved in fulfilling what society desired out of you that you just did not have the time to listen to yourself. Even when you did hear that voice call from within, you swiftly pushed the mute button.

You come back from office after an exhaustive day at work. You switch on the TV and no matter which channel you visit, the hunt is on for the next big singing sensation. It fires up your imagination, more so when you see doctors, engineers, teachers and people from every possible walk of life joining in the bandwagon. And then finally you get the news that they are doing the audition in your own city. You decide that no matter what comes, you are going this time. So happy you are with this decision as this must be one decision that you have taken from your heart in the past 20 years. You are raring to go. Eventually its D day. The audition is at 2 pm at the city hall. You reach the place well in time (years of professional life has taught you to be punctual). You see the people pouring in through the gates, some with guitars, some looking like hooligans, some well dressed like you, even a few foreigners. You are apprehensive about how you will perform but the mere thought that you will perform is itself so exciting that everything else takes the back seat. Just then the phone rings. Its your boss on the line. He has had to schedule an urgent meeting to discuss an issue and you are the only one in your firm with a solid grasp over the matter. Being present in the meeting and successfully handling the situation could mean an onsite assignment and a handsome increment which is due in a month. Being absent could mean none of that and above that might find you in the bad books of your boss. So you look around the room. “There are so many of these reality shows on air and one of them will certainly have its audition soon”. You get up and walk out of those gates……