Dreams or Ambition

 What would be your answer if I ask you 

What is your dream?

Or 

What was your dream?

If I ask you how you dreamed yourself to be when you were 6 

And now are you what you always dreamed of?

If you are fortunate enough to be what you dreamed of 

I must salute you 

And if not 

Well keep reading 

I was brought up in this place near to Ranchi and was fortunate enough to spend some good time in Ranchi

And I guess the very next thought that comes to most of us after hearing Ranchi is MS Dhoni

Yes I too always dreamed of becoming a cricketer like him 

And I guess we are just too many in this dream.

I dreamt to be playing like him for my country and that dream became even stronger when I scored my first half century in gully cricket(A good 56 with my DSC bat)

But my town was short of a cricket academy and the boarding school I was sent to didn’t allow cricket, again for the reason that no one would play any other sport.

Though I didn’t know how leather ball really felt I cried to my parents several times to send me to a place for cricket. Where I can train and play and raise my bat if I score.

Well like the cricket dream I shared with most of the kids I shared the rejection too.

 For my parents I was too small to be sent to other city for cricket but for cricket I was just missing the very perfect time.

Anyways I grew up and though I couldn’t play professional cricket but you can’t take the cricket fan out of an Indian guy, can you?

I moved to Ranchi finally and started my 11th standard there. As I just settled in that city my father called me once and said “Beta try cricket and see if something happens”

“Ah! we are late ,both ,you and me and anyways I will make a career in finance”

I have no idea how I said that but just like those accomplishers and those Indian fathers 

He replied “Its never too late” but if you know cricket in India, maybe I was really late 

And even if not 

“I will make a career in finance” 

Its not that the will behind my dream was that weak but I feel I was grown enough that my ambition and dream meant different things for me

And my ambition took over my dream.

It was Hyderabad vs Rajasthan today in the Indian Premier League and Ishan Kishan a guy from Bihar who trained in Ranchi and played for Jharkhand in domestics raised his bat after scoring a blasting century off 45 balls. 

At this point he doesn’t have a central contract which is one differentiator between normal and regular international cricketers,He has been out of the Indian Cricket Team from a while and wasn’t retained by his old team Mumbai Indians but I guess when he looks himself in the mirror he doesn’t have that melancholic smile thinking of his childhood dream. Yes, his current ambitions aren’t achieved yet but he made a good part of his dream true.

Not that I blame my parents for not taking my dream that seriously because their parents didn’t even let them dream when they were kids.

But yes even if I was given a proper chance, that melancholic smile on my face would have lasted lesser and if achieved I might have been have been raising my bat and then sleep knowing how dreams coming true feels like.

There’s a question which is often asked now a days “What would you say to your younger self?”

Well of course “Work for your dreams, they do come true”

But more than to my younger self I would like to say something to my future self and not just me but to every person who’s growing up to be a serious adult quite soon 

“If you ever get kids, Do take their dreams seriously. Before they start taking their ambitions more seriously than their dreams.”