Following Your Dream

A callow, young man was hyper-ventilating on the TV show.  Going blue in the face, exhorting other youngsters to be passionate in `following their dreams and reach for the skies', as he had himself done.  To `aim for the stars' and not become exemplary symbols of mediocrity by settling for something far short of their dreams.  He could afford to crow, because he had tasted success (he never mentions the few lucky breaks he got, but then that is part of the package!) and was on TV - one of the few who dream and also succeed, among the millions of defeated aspirants.  When he had exhausted all the catchy phrases, pressed all the hot buttons and triumphantly expanded his chest before taking questions, a sleepy voice from the back wanted to be heard.  The owner of the voice, slouching in the last row in a rather languid position - his dream would appropriately have been never to lift himself even partially from horizontality -  felled him with this innocuous missile: `That is all very well, but how do I know I am dreaming right'?  The gun that was booming till now seemed to be silenced because there was no immediate response and then only a feeble `I guess only you can tell'.  The exuberant young man did not bargain for something as fundamental as that.

This has always been the crux of the problem, as most of us would have seen in life.  While rhetorically we can say 'sky is the limit' and encourage someone to reach heavenwards, serious consideration ought to be given to the character and attributes of the individual involved and the chances of the dream being attained.  However desperate the seeker is to reach the destination, the mentor/advisor should match skills, capability, potential and staying power with the objective on hand.  Not to become a stumbling block in the path of a young aspirant, but for a simple and basic validation of the dream and to right-size it, so-to-say, so that the poor chap does not embark on a never-ending wild goose chase.  I hear some purist-dreamers tut-tutting because in their view, such attempts essentially clip the wings of dreamers, constrains them.  This is akin to asking dreamers to fly, while forcibly tethering them to earth, they sarcastically remark!  But that is only because they think of the dream as an end in itself whereas in reality, it is just the beginning of the travails for the youngsters.  All well-wishers should be concerned more about the arduous journey to be undertaken for the realization of dreams.  Otherwise, despite all the bluster, fire and brimstone about following dreams, unwittingly the seeds of a minor or major disaster may be sown right at the `dreaming' stage because of a fundamental goof-up by the mentor.  This could end up hurting the ward grievously.

A college mate of mine was a pretty good singer.  His passion for music and singing were indiscriminately fanned by those around him, with wildly exaggerated statements like `you should be singing for the movies', `you are as good as TMS and SPB' (famous playback singers in Thamizh movies).  This boy's music teacher, an utterly unsophisticated and humble man who had not stirred out of the small town we lived in, could not fathom the grind required to walk this raw talent to the threshold of stardom. He giddily got into the heady melee, swept by the accolades coming their way.  While his intention was good, as a mentor he got turned on by the `passion' part and completely ignored the fact that the boy and his family were just not equipped to sustain themselves through the long struggle. And also that there were thousands of such pretenders to the throne, thirsting for recognition and greater opportunities.   Result was that the boy really lived a hard life for the next thirty years, before reconciling to the fact that he would forever be an also-ran, having to eke out an existence by singing in third rate road-shows and the like.  He had no other qualification to speak of, having devoted his entire life to music, so had to rely on singing, however disgusted he was with what he loved passionately earlier!  If only he had someone to calibrate his dream with his capability and set realistic goals!!  He might have been enjoying his part-time singing, while earning his bread comfortably through some other means!  Hence my belief that dream-setting (however conflicting and contrived it sounds) is as critical as goal-setting in corporate life is!

Year 1987.  Thamizh movie, `Nayagan' was released - with Kamala Haasan as the hero, a rebellious kid who gutsily grows up to be an underworld don in Bombay and zealously protects his tribe from harm, wielding immense power derived from his shady business activities.   There was no dearth of young men who pretended to be Kamala Haasan those days, as they strutted theatrically everywhere.  I was visiting a friend's family and conversation veered towards the film.  Suddenly the handsome, adolescent younger brother of my friend made the rather grandiose declaration that Kamala Haasan had fired his imagination in the movie and had lit up his own path to the dream destination.  Contextually, it must be placed on record that this was a rather heavily fortified, conservative family and the patriarch ruled with a heavy hand to keep his clan in line.  He had a rather healthy distaste for show business and all its appendages.  When his younger son outed himself thus, he promptly went on an overdrive,  vehemently denouncing the rebellious effort by his son to become an actor and frothed at his mouth for some twenty minutes.  All of us watched this family tussle in stunned and embarrassed silence.  When the father finished the harangue, he looked sternly at the prodigal son expecting an abject apology, the latter haltingly said `You got me wrong; I dont want to be an actor'.  The parents seemed very relieved and almost smiled for a moment when the son dropped the bombshell, `I dream of becoming a powerful don, who can take care of his people'!  The father reacted with a paroxysmal exercise of opening and closing his mouth, with assorted sputtering noises emerging therefrom; finished by gaping like a fish, as a nutty character in a P.G.Wodehouse novel would.  And the mother had passed out (and probably had a couple of dreams of her own?) - it was too much for the tender soul to imagine her son as a goon-don!!  Mercifully, that lad did not inflict further agony on the family by lingering in his own la-la land, desisted from pursuing his 'dream' under duress and is now a happy and successful entrepreneur in life.

Without straining our memories too much, each one of us can recount horror stories of girls who dream of being film stars, get duped into a life of prostitution, ruthlessly exploited by the flesh trade and completely jettisoned by the family.  Many a good college cricketer, starry-eyed with reasonable success at lower levels, embark on a massive struggle to be the next Dhoni, without realizing that the mountain they are climbing is actually a huge pile of failed cricketers.  They invariably end up without a decent vocation to fall back on eventually, because it turns out they are not good enough when it comes to the crunch.  Not to mention hordes of young men fancying their hands in business and plunging headlong with borrowed finances, hoping to come out like Ambani, but ending up in ruins.  Not to forget the parents who ambitiously `dream' for their reluctant children, pile on unrealistic expectations and resultant pressure on them, the saga ending up in tragedies of Greek proportions for everyone.  All probably because the dramatis personae are only aiming for the stars literally, forgetting to look where they are going on the ground and walking into the landmines their paths are strewn with. 

My dear wife has a very valid query: `Does this mean youngsters should abandon dreaming about their future and timidly accept what comes along? If it is, you will make the world more boring and unadventurous than it already is'.  No, absolutely not. All they and their mentors should do is to balance their capabilities and aspirations to decide how far they should fly.  May be a bit boring, but at least one is alive - to try again!! After all, it is suicidal to fly into the stratosphere if your wings would be torn asunder in the attempt, right?