Phew!!!! A lot of venom I had spewed in my last blog, mainly because I was hurt, sorry and disgruntled at the state of affairs in my own state, the place where I was born, brought up and which gave me an identity, of being a Bengali, a proud one at that. Don’t get ideas that I’m promoting regionalism, but one does develop a deep and distinct relationship with his/her mother tongue; no matter how many more dialects he/she can speak fluently. We all are deeply attached to our roots, roots that lie in that cemented courtyard of our homes, that small square patch of grass in the locality, which we proudly used to pass off as a field and brag to other neighbourhood kids about it size, how cricket balls would be lost in the bushes adjoining to it if one hit them far, etc; those snacks stalls in the local market serving up delectable items; which today we wouldn’t dare touch in fear of gaining untimely kilos; then nobody thought of those, as all the fat we would accumulate over one feast, more than that would be melted off in a frenetic game of football the next evening, ending only because of sunset (and not at sunset). Evenings and nights would be spent only planning strategically about how to gain revenge for the days adverse result in the next evening’s game; at the end of it all though, everyone would be bosom buddies once again. I am quite sure that everyone has a secret wish deep within; of developing a power to roll back all those years, just to become child once again. Herein lies the dilemma and contradiction of human psyche; all through our childhood we wish to grow up overnight, just to skip the parental disciplining, to teach the neighbourhood bullies a lesson, to be able to marry that cute looking girl staying two blocks away that one developed a crush on; and now when we have indeed done that, some maturing beyond years, we all want that elusive childhood back. We thus continue to live in a contradiction all through our lives, unable to decide for ourselves what we actually want; continue to live constantly in a state of denial of who we want to be and who we are; trying to act happy and content; but the tragedy lies in the fact that none of us are who we wanted to be in our childhood. That is the only honest and spotless dream we used to nurture, because it was not tainted with the smell of money, not breached by the hunger of power, of trying to dominate others, not fuelled by insecurity or pumped by jealousy.
Of course we cannot roll back the years, but we can still push that little dream of ours off its slumber, and make it walk towards the destination it deserves; because now most of us are not bound down by those fetters which themselves produced the dreams; now we are free to chase them in whichsoever manner we like, as long as we follow them honestly. But then having a re-think, do we really want to achieve those now? Isn't the lure of money strong enough to pull us away from emotional burdens, to take that hard step towards realistic, practical world, which has no place for dreams which can be only termed now as foolish and immature? I leave it upto you to decide.
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