Of dreams and fear

Once in a while, a sudden sentence in a casual conversation leaps out and catches your attention. It happened at lunch to me yesterday and I've been thinking about it since then.

 
I was at Subway with Pooja and Karishma, two colleagues I really enjoy working with. Pooja is easily one of the best looking people I have met in my entire life. Young, bright, intelligent and way too mature for her 21 years, I often wonder how she's done so much so well, so fast in life. Karishma is another girl I simply adore at work. Bubbly, cute and outrageously funny; she just makes my day even with the simplest of things she says.

So yeah, back to the lunch conversation. Pooja got married last year. She was just 20 and apparently she and Ratan hit it off instantly and bought each other's wedding rings in two months. Now, I've never understood how that happens. I mean, yeah in an arranged marriage set up I understand; you have marriage on your mind when you meet a certain someone anyway and then you just tick away on your mental checklist and take a call. But here, you're just dating and "seeing each other" you know seeing how things go testing the waters whatever. So munching on iceberg lettuce minced between some seemingly exotic Italian bread, Karishma and I look at Pooja with wide-eyed amazement. And what she had to tell me, just triggered off an entirely new thought process in my head. She said "I was such a wild child, seeing 5 guys at a time. And one fine day, this guy walks into my house and I just stop taking everyone else's call. Two months and we're engaged and it didn't for one bit feel out of place. I think we guys just think so much and we're so scared about getting messed up and we keep thinking that something might go wrong and then we just can't let go of all that."

Pooja kept talking, but I'd lost her right there. It's so true. We're so scared of having to deal with the choices that life throws at us. We're so scared of everything ' not just about relationships, but any dream that we have. Dream to scale heights, dream to love again, dream to give up something that we're doing and take on something that we believed was our calling when we were 4. Fear rears its ugly head in the way of each dream; piling on enough examples from past disasters to overshadow the dreams bearing potential to turn themselves to reality. And we just think; "Forget it, we'll see what fate has in store for us." So fate will be the culprit; it will quietly take the responsibility of our brain murdering the ambition of the heart; while we just sit and stare. To break from this is tough, but is better too; I'm told. Like Rayo reminded me on his recent post again about what I had read in the Alchemist a while back but somewhere along, forgot to believe in ' the world's greatest lie.

“It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by Fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie." Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

There is a beautiful rendition of Baavra Mann in Hazarron Khwahishein Aisi by Shubha Mudgal, accompanied by Prithwish Nandy's poety that I keep listening to. And it's playing now in my head again. Let me share the lyrics here.

Sun in the earth sunflower

Bird in the air rain

Eye within eye daybreak

bavra mann dekhne chala ek sapna ..

Streets we have never walked on

Windows we have never opened

Hands we have never held

Dreams we shall never see again

bavra mann dekhne chala ek sapna ..

bavre se mann ki dekho bavri hain baatein

bavri si dhadkane hain bavri hain saanse

Sun in the earth sunflower

Bird in the air rain

Eye within eye daybreak

Lives we have never lived

Hopes we have never realized

Fires we have never lit

Loves we shall never never make again

bavra mann dekhne chala ek sapna ..

Sun in the earth sunflower

Bird in the air rain

Eye within eye daybreak

I hear those strange whispers again