Saturday, March 6, 2010

Congratulations!!

Are you one of those people, who forward emails full of pumping feel-goodism such as “the only thing worse than an unfinished job is a job never started”? It feels so good to tell people to go out and catch their dreams, because isn’t that just what we have been waiting to do? We occasionally stare at the flat screen monitors in office and dream about the day when we will have arrived!
How exactly, we aren’t sure; we are still waiting for a few things that need sorting out first - marriage, a car, a house, a better workplace, anything. We lie down late in the night after watching some movie, which we have probably seen at least three times before, simply because they push it to our TV at prime time and we dont care anymore. Sometimes, before sleep takes over, we uneasily remember that little boy or girl who once confidently stood up and said “when I grow up I will be so and so!” and wonder, whatever happened in the meanwhile!

So when we come across this bizarre couple who have been crazy enough to decide that, everything else can wait, but not the dream, we tend to follow them closely. Especially when the dreamer is a girl. Especially when the dream entails quitting a plush job to invest twenty four months of her life for cracking one of the toughest competitive exams. Especially when, the other spouse builds a solid net of protection around this girl so that none of jeering or worried calls for sanity from well meaning relatives bump her off course. Together they toil through one milestone after another, as though a single entity, all the while dreaming the same dream.

Then one day, which couldn’t have come sooner, what with the countless nervous visits to the website, the results are out.

You know what the results are, when you look at the man, whose ebullience has somehow deified gravity, so he hovers slightly above ground. Then you know, what really a pay off is. There is no need to stop and wonder, what if, the result had been different? These two people would have still been heroes, don’t you agree? For heroism in our times lies in keeping our dreams alive.
I am not sure how big an impact the Women’s Quota bill would have on the women of this country. I am not sure whether there will be ever an acceptance for stay at home dads. I am very sure that the day there are more couples like these, the need for Women’s Day celebrations would have been obsolete.

Congratulations Niyati and Paresh!! We need our heroes…

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