Unrealised Dream

The first few minutes on the first day of school were always spent in introductions. While some teachers were happy knowing just the names of their new students, others wanted to know their parents’ names and their occupations. Some were curious to find out what each kid dreamed to be when she was older, and sometimes why the chosen profession. It was evident from what most of my classmates said, that medicine and engineering were the preferred courses even back then.

I can’t remember what I said before I got hooked to film magazines. But after I started devouring film gossip from the glittery Startdusts and Filmfares, I was sure what I wanted to be. A journalist, as my brother had told me. What a life, they led, these journalists, I thought! They get to meet all the glamorous film stars that we can only dream of, sometimes in their lavish homes too. They certainly must have several pictures taken alongside the stars. What luck! Imagine, I’d get to do what I loved doing – write and also meet all the stars for free. This profession was made for me!

Soon, my cousins and my own brother, who always had a word of advice for their sis, said film journalism was not that great. I had to be a political journalist if I had to be taken seriously. That way, I could expose corrupt politicians and unearth ugly scams. The rich and the famous would be scared of me. Wow!

And then in high school, one teacher told me that I didn’t have to be a journalist, in order to write. I could pursue a ‘more suitable’, which probably meant more lucrative career and still write. Free lancing it was called. My biggest influence, my brother, couldn’t agree more. “You should take up Engineering. You can do a course in journalism after that if you still want to”, he said. I gave in half-heartedly.

I would peep out of the BTS bus window and look wistfully at the “Asian school of Journalism” on my way to school and back. And I would tell my mom that journalism was where my heart was. Being the more dynamic of the two, she once went to the school and enquired, to be told that they only offered post-graduate courses. We made a pact between us. I would graduate, in Arts like I wanted to, and then come back and take their entrance test. I would surely clear it and go on to study journalism. And I would be a journalist.

My mom was gone a few years after that and with her that childhood dream of mine. Today, the pact remains a memorable conversation between the two of us. And I constantly wonder if I should live it out for her...