Saturday, 14 June 2014

An Indian Dream



Licking at the lollipop the little boy asked,
“Can I become a cricketer?”
Said the boy’s mother to her little son.
“Well, that you can,” her voice well masked!

“Thank you’, said the young lad gleefully.
“But, hold on for a second more,”
She had something coming her son’s way!
“After completing an engineering degree fully!”

“But then I would be an engineer,” he protested.
“And not a cricketer!”
“To be a cricketer you have to be an engineer!”
Exclaimed the mother, which the boy detested.

“Well, then I can be a singer as I can sing very well!”
Innocence brimming in his voice.
"Well for that you have to be a doctor first.”
His mother’s words, in his mind, caused a pell-mell!

Now the boy wanted to know his mother’s views
On the varied professions.
“What should I couple an acting career with?”
“This house will not be home to make-up hues!”

Boomed his father’s voice from behind the newspaper.
Followed by a deafening silence.
“An artist sounds like a mid-path career, dad”
“Architect,” declared the little boy’s career-shaper!

A few years passed and the little boy was all grown up.
“Engineering, it will be,”
He declared to his father in a resigned tone.
“Well, that is the end of the big storm in the tea cup!”

Mused his father, a broad smile adorning his aging lips.
“Dreams bloom thus!”
Not realising that his son was never allowed to dream,
His father proudly held the tea cup and took few hot sips!

More years had lapsed before the little boy graduated.
“My son is an engineer,”
Declared the proud father to everyone that he met!
He called his young man to discuss his future, unabated!

“What are your plans for your future, dear young man?”
The father was brimming with pride.
“I have decided not to waste time thinking about it.
As you must have done my thinking long back, old man!”

His son’s voice echoed with sarcasm and bitterness!
That stunned his father.
“I did all this for your good and nothing else,
“All along you wanted to think for yourself, I guess,”

His father asked him, finally, what his passion was,
As he saw his son as a man!
“I need some time to introspect before I decide.
And your advice shall be my strength,” he said after a pause!

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