PLEASE DON’T CRUSH THE AMBITIONS OF YOUR CHILDREN, DEAR PARENTS..

Ali Peter John

I in all my seventy years have been a witness to the crushing and smashing of the ambition and the dreams of sons and daughters by their own parents and I feel most of the misery in the world is because of parents not being able to understand their children.

It has been a general prediction for the father who is a doctor wanting his son to be another doctor, or an engineer to see his son as another engineer,a politician wanting his son to be another and more corrupt politician, a priest wanting his son to be another fraud priest and even a beggar wanting his son to continue his footsteps and sit at the footsteps of places to be the beggars of the new generation, and the same goes for mothers who were silent and willing to be doormats for hundreds of years and have now found new voices ever since there has been talk of women empowerment which is so much of talk in the air, at least in a country like our great country.

I have seen some signs of optimism when I see clerks wanting their sons to be head clerks, workers wanting their sons to be supervisors and compounders and nurses wanting their children to be doctors and so the story goes on.

But I didn’t realize the seriousness of this problem till I was made to be a witness to this kind of a story which first made me angry, second made me angrier and third made me lose my sleep and my gift of dreaming both good and bad dreams.

It was after years that I realized how killing the crushing of young dreams could kill all those who had hope in the youth of today for a better future.

A young, pretty and absolutely brilliant for her age (eighteen) had been nurturing her ambition and her dream to be an IAS officer and she was already preparing herself for the big test, she was leading all the books that could broaden her horizons, she was spending all her money on buying the kind of books youngsters have not even heard of and read these books till late in the night and then again from four in the morning till she had to get ready to go college and then go to work in an office where she had to slog for little or no returns and then return home in a faraway suburb to have some tea, some little snacks and then go back to her books, newspapers and periodicals till it was dinner time and then again some more reading before going to bed only to wake up in the morning.

She was happy in her world which she was busy building for herself brick by brick and was quite determined that she had to make it because it was a promise she had made to herself….

And then came that evening when she decided to tell her mother first and then both her parents about her ambition to go to Delhi to appear for the IAS exams.

The very words, IAS and especially Delhi set their little house in a some kind of invisible fire as both the parents were adamant and they would have nothing to do with her ‘big talks’ about Delhi and the IAS.

The arguments for the defense and the prosecution went on all evening and till late midnight, the daughter tried her best to make her parents understand, but they seemed to have forgotten what understanding a daughter and her dreams meant.

For them, it could have been the best if she had pursued a course in doing her M.A in Mumbai and they were not willing to send her to Delhi or even to any place that resembled what heaven would look like, they had put all their four feet down, they had locked their ears and they had put their brains on a silent mode, the daughter kept pleading but the refused to heed to any of her pleadings.

The daughter who I had met only a couple of months ago and had found some pillar to lean on and to have her wagon of faith (Aasta) on me, called me and I who was literally dead tired spang back to life and listen to her tell me about what she called her ‘sad and bad day’ and we kept talking with the cellphones and internet playing the villains time and again till we had to give up for the day to stay restless till the next morning.

The next morning I was busy with my health problems, but I had to get back to work is I had to continue living and I started work, but it is in the midst of my work that I have felt this strong urge to write about this problem which I know is not an ordinary problem.

Even as I am writing this piece of advice, warning, warming or call it what you may, I saw a strange, a very strange coincidence when I saw Aasta’s name in my mobility screen and we talked…

She was sounding better, she was calm and serene and told me that she had found an alternative and even though I was not very happy with her alternative, I felt happy for her because I didn’t want any more villains to come in her way.

Who knows whether the alternative she has found its for the better or not?

Who knows whether the alternative has taken away a very bright IAS officer from the field where young men and women are being treated like clerks and pions and are forced to play into the hands of vicious, wicked, corrupt and devilish politicians?

I am not very sure about this country and the people in power in this country, but my heart which is still very much for India tells me that in losing Aasta Joshi, she, our motherland is surely losing a daughter who has and will always have her own vision and a vision for her country.

I am still in a flux, I have never had the occasion of facing a situation like the one in the Aasta Joshi case.

And before I get back to my work, I want to tell Aasta a story of Naseeruddin Shah, one of the most outstanding actors in the country, Naseer always wanted to be an actor and he was, Naseer always wanted to play the role of the poet Mirza Ghalib and was waiting for an opportunity, he was at the FTII when he read about Gulzar planning to make a film on Ghalib with either Amitabh Bachchan or Sanjeev Kumar as the poet, Naseer went berserk and finally wrote to Gulzar saying that he was doing something entirely wrong by casting either Amitabh or Sanjeev in the role because the role was to be played by him (Naseer alone) and all was forgotten. Years later, Gulzar wanted to make a TV-serial based on the poet, but Amitabh and Sanjeev wear not willing to do TV, not even for Gulzar. It was then that Gulzar remembered the letter Naseer had written to him. Naseer had by now made a name for himself as an actor and he was thrilled when Gulzar offered him the role of Ghalib. Today, years later, Naseer talks about his Mirza Ghalib experience and says,“if you pursue your dream with passion, even the universe conspires to make your dream come true.” Are you listening, dear little girl Aasta?

I am no astrologer, I know nothing about the next moment, but I would like to see Aasta’s original dream come true because if there is anything that the world especially India needs today, it is girls like Aasta who have faith in themselves and can instill Aasta (faith) in others.

I may be there or not, but from wherever I am or however ancient I have become, I would love to see Aasta as she would like herself to be and not just be another young women lost in the crowd and walking over her own ambition and dreams.