Two things are currently hogging the limelight in
India. The first of course, in a cricket crazy nation,
is Pakraman - the Indian tour of Pakistan. After
wrapping the One-day series 3-2, India won their first
test match few days later, the first ever in 52 years
of toil on Pakistani soil. With two tests more to go,
India is all set to win their first overseas Test
Series in many many years. Since cricket gets more
than its due attention, no more of cricket here.
The other hot issue is the General Elections, in which
there is two-way contest between an aging yet astute
Vajpayee, and Sonia Gandhi, a woman purportedly of
foreign origin. More than a decade back when Rajiv
Gandhi was assassinated, and Sonia asked to head the
congress, I was ecstatic. Now, an aficionado of the
likes of Arun Shourie and Arun Jaitley, my vote is
with you-know-whom. Some two years back when the
economy was in doldrums and the coalition compulsion
taking its toll on our PM, my father lamented at the
state of affairs and thought that only Congress could
lead India. But year 2003 saw a sudden turnaround -
the economy boomed - the monsoons were good and the
GDP growth was skyrocketing. The same year saw state
elections in five states, an event viewed as the
semi-final of general elections. Most of the pre-poll
survey predicted victory of Congress. But the results
were the exact opposite. And suddenly Congress ran out
of steam. If this was not enough, the nation witnessed
an overdose of "India Shining" campaign. The last
quarter saw an astonishing 10% growth, only to
corroborate the point. The BJP detractors turned camps
and a second term for Vajpayee seems to be a
formality.
The forthcoming elections prompted me to write
something about my view of India, the India that I
wanted in year 2020. But lethargy and few other years
will make Vision 2020 wait for a while.
Here, I would talk about something more mundane: about
desires, cravings and dreams. The triggers were
manifold. As a comment to my previous column, Shailesh
wrote, "Why is it so that we value something when it's
not with us? For example, we start crying India India
... when we are away from her?"
In another discussion, my wife said how her cousin
sister was playing hard-to-get with her fianc?, and
how the man-in-love was chasing the girl when the love
was still in its infancy. My wife wondered what would
happen if her cousin sister actually started loving
him? My reply was curt and contrary, "When your
sister falls in love with the man, the latter would
lose interest and then your sister would chase him. In
fact, such overt display of affection actually spoils
the relationships."
The third trigger was my second book on "3G Networks",
co-authored with my dear friend Nishit, which launched
some two weeks back. Right from the first of January
2004, we were eagerly counting days when the book
would come and we would have the first look at it.
When the book actually came, there was momentary joy
and then it was business as usual. When I had written
my first book, I had written a rather touching
article, "A Dead Dream" [web ref. 2]. Contrary to the
popular perception, the word 'dead' does not imply to
the shattering of the dreams; it rather refers to the
fulfilment and subsequent disinterest in the dream.
The second book too demanded some more dead dreams.
Similar feelings were echoed many years back when I
wrote the poem "Ek sapne ki maut" [web ref. 3]. Here,
I quote four lines from the poem:
"Bahut samay baad ek din mujhe mil gaya wah sapna.
Athak parishram ke kaaran sach hua tha wah sapna.
Pal bhar ki khushi de paya mujhe chota sa wah sapna.
Dhool main pada hua tha, mara hua wah sapna."
The above highlight a very important aspect of human
beings, which manifests in many statements as follows:
"The grass is greener on the other side"; "We tend to
value our disappointments more than our achievements";
"We are unable to see the brighter things in our
life"; and many others.
After pondering for a while, I have concluded that
however hard we try to bask in the glory of our
current and past achievements, time moves on. The
silver lining here is that along with good times, time
also ensures that the bad times also do not last
forever. Thus, the wise is one who moves along with
time and takes everything in his/her stride.
The life then becomes a set of dreams (ephemeral,
transient, and to an extent meaningless) that we seek
to fulfil, a set of impossible dreams (ala the
dialogue of movie Khamoshi "Wo Jindagi hi kya jisme
koi Namkumkin sapna na ho?"), a set of actions
performed in order to fulfil some of these dreams, the
victories and the defeats associated with the
conquests, and subsequently, plenty of time to ponder
over our triumphs, tribulations, cravings, desires and
more dreams.
Chachu (4/4/2004)
Web Resources
-------------
[1] http://skasera.tripod.com/shouldidream.html
[2] http://skasera.tripod.com/deaddream.html
[3] http://skasera.tripod.com/eksapnekimaut.html
[4] CC#3: Of Sansodhan, Beliefs and Dreams:
http://skasera.tripod.com/article/cc003.html
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