When we are young, we dream of a thousand things…we aspire to be the best - when I was young, almost everybody dreamt of being a doctor, pilot, engineer, teacher - all at the same time, so did I. My favorite profession at that point was doctor, anybody would question me, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and pat came the reply, ‘I wanna be a doctor!’ - Well, I din’t become one, I gave up the idea when one my dad’s friend asked me whether I wanted to be a MBBS doctor or PHD doctor?? I was too young to know the difference, but old enuff to feel embarrassed to death!! That’s when I struck out doctor out of my dream careers.

After a couple of months, I had ‘discovered’ a new career - ‘Collector’ - now not sure how many of you know that an ‘IAS officer’ is fondly called a ‘Collector’ - I didn’t know that either, my grandmother had used this word whilst wishing that I become this ‘Collector’ and make ‘em all proud. From that day on, all I knew was I had to study hard and become a ‘Collector’. Then came the scene of embarrassment - One day, this newbie teacher - ‘Miss’ as we respectfully addressed her - took our introductions and asked us what we wanted to be when we were grown ups. When it was my turn, I stood up - my heart pounding real hard; (it always used to, when I was asked to address an audience) out of both excitement and nervousness - told my name loud and clear, then blurted out, “When I grow up, I want to be a Collector” - there was a brief silence - a sense of bewilderment prevailed, and then the teacher, - probably she din’t know what a collector was asked me - “What collector?”. I stood there frozen for a moment, perplexed and trying to recall the conversation with my granma, well, there you go - damn, she din’t mention that. By this time the over enthusiastic bunch in my class started shouting ‘ticket collector - ticket-ticket’, there was chaos, laughter - at that very moment, this career went out of my wannabe list forever!!! The teacher got busy in quietening the class, coyly I sat down and thanked God that I was spared of further interrogation. Although, I wondered for a while if becoming a ‘ticket collector’ would have actually made my family - more specifically my granma proud!

Well, the whole point is, I have a career in finance - I crunch numbers, about which I had not even the faintest inclination (I was bad at math in school!!). Guess life’s like that, you dream of a lot of things, aspire for numerous things - but, destiny plays its cards and surprises you almost everytime you reminisce!!

We still urge youngsters to follow their dreams, don’t we??

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