On Dreams

Yesterday, in need of inexpensive nutrition, I stopped by at a small roadside hotel near a busy rail station in Mumbai. I was hungry so, oblivious of my surroundings, I attacked my food with gusto. In a short while, a tall, swarthy, middle-aged man plonked himself opposite me on my table. I value my solitude, so I was not a little irritated. Especially because there were other empty tables, and he could have had his choice of seating. 

I stared at him, hoping to convey my displeasure and annoyance but he stared imperviously back at me. Not being in the mood for a conflict, I looked away.

That look reminded me of a familiar face, though, and hoping to make something out of the situation, I asked him if we had met before, that I had seen him before and that was he in the movies? He seemed quite glad of my question and thanked me for having recognised me and said that he, in fact, was an actor.

We got talking, as people will when they are thrown together out of necessity, and by and by I asked about his favourite role to date. With spreading his hands in a gesture born of resignation and despair, he said "Woh role hi nahin mila" (Never got that role).

After a few seconds of pregnant silence while looking at me to see if I understood, he said that that role was one that would have made a difference to his career and his life. He hadn't, to date, gotten that role.

Twenty-five years he had spent here in Mumbai since he came with dreams clouding his vision, as a young man about my age. Twenty-five years of scrounging around to get two-bit roles in mostly forgettable movies. Twenty-five years of hoping that the next one would be the big one, the one that would catapult him to fame, power, and wealth. That was the time of struggle, of a slow, sizzling fire in the belly, of sleepless nights and hungry stomachs. Then the fire simmered less brightly, got dimmer by the day. Finally, a few years ago, it died out. Lately, he was at peace with himself. He had accepted that the role he had fantasised about wasn't coming, that it was useless to pursue that pipe dream. He had reconciled himself to what he was - no more feverish wish making for him, no frantic prayers and no hope.

His answer set me thinking. Would I, twenty years hence, sitting in a similar hotel across a young man starting out in life, be able to say that I had, in fact, got the role? That I was able to make a difference somewhere, for which I'd be remembered by a few people, for having done something important and significant? I had stepped into the world, after finishing my studies, with the certain knowledge that I was special. That I was destined to do be influential and important. Delusions of grandeur I never had; my feet were always firmly on the ground. I have never wanted to be super rich and famous the world over. All I wanted was my little corner, where I could influence a few lives of people around me, make a difference in the humdrum existence that is the lot of most of us.

There had always been an innate belief that I had what it took to make my dreams come true. The dialogue with my friend in the restaurant shook me out of a reverie - I had put those dreams of mine in the background? I was being sucked into the vortex of a comfortable, routine existence where one gets up in the morning with very little to look forward to except another regular day in the office. To gaze out of the window and be jealous of the kids playing outside, so full of joie de vivre while prancing around without a single worrying thought clouding their brow. And wait for the weekend to happen, when I could sleep in late, read, meet a few friends, or go out for a long walk in one of the few remaining large, forested areas around Mumbai. Await minuscule pleasures, when once I dreamed of so much.

A friend had once asked me what it felt like to be my age. She was a very young twenty-two then, and I was, for her, a very old twenty-six. Brooding again on the question - what happened to me, as birthdays passed me by with monotonous regularity? I don't like the answers that crop up in the mind. Some dreams died and very few new ones flowered to take their place. A vacuum where ideas should have frolicked, crowding for space. In my eyes, I became a little less special and bit more sceptical.

One dream, however, I could never let go. Like a man who keeps a treasured document away in his trunk, much folded and unfolded, creased with age but treasured nevertheless, I bring this dream out of the recesses of my mind - again and again. With unfailing regularity, I dream of writing something that will remain in people's minds, and cupboards, long after I am dead and gone. Of writing about people of the interplay of human emotions, of dreams and failures, motives and means, good and evil, failures and successes. I know not what it is that I want to write about, or who – only that I want to write.

Doubts assail me - am I original enough to give to the world what no other mind has yet thought about? Even in the paragraph above, I have borrowed an idea that was someone else's. The simile of the man and his treasured document I cannot claim as mine, it came forth on its own from a fog of memory, a legacy of the multitude of books that I have read. So why would the world want to read a rehash? Would all that I write be just that - a rehash?

But even as I write, a small voice pipes up. It tells me that I am feeling enormously satisfied having written whatever I have written this evening. Why do I want a role created by the vision or worse, munificence of others, it asks me, when I can create my own? A role that is uniquely crafted for me alone, by someone gives paramount importance to my well-being, a role created by myself. For my satisfaction, for me to be able to say to myself that I have spent that day well and have made at least one person happy – myself!

I will write whenever I feel the urge. I will write again and again, and again. I will not let this dream - and my other dreams - die. I will rise above the routine, away from the failings of ordinariness and mediocrity that were trying to eat their way into my innards, making me weak and impotent. 

With new resolve, I looked back at my dinner companion as he finished his meal. I thanked him for his company as I got up and shook his hand a lot more warmly than I would have when departing from a random acquaintance of a few minutes. After that day, I remember our conversation fondly and point him out to my friends when I see him in another small role in a movie, until those sightings happened only in old movies.