Follow your dreams, they all say. Go for what you are passionate about. Take the road not taken. Create your own path by doing something different. Amidst all the preaching, we forget the harsh reality that we all don’t start at the same page, we all don’t get the freedom to be what we want to and how destiny serves dilemma to our table to make it a Biased Beginning.
PART-I
It was just another Sunday morning for Swati, she was messing around the house, wiping the kitchen-slab, grabbing her toast and running to catch her cab which had been waiting outside for a while. She pulled the door of the cab, sat down, and apologized to the driver saying, “Sorry bhaiya! I will try to be on time from tomorrow.” The driver smiled as he pressed on the gas pedal, ‘cause he knew there wasn’t any end to her tardiness’. The sunny morning with wind blowing her hair around initiated her chain of thoughts, or rather regrets, that she never gets to be with her family not even on Sundays. And this thought took her down the memory lane to the series of instances which changed her life.
Five years back, she was working hard to become one of the best and renowned dancers of India. Dance, was her passion, her life. She couldn’t even think about not being a dancer. She was one of the best dancers of her academy, had won many state level competitions and was appreciated by everyone. She was so happy in enjoying this phase of her life. But little did she know what destiny has planned for her. Next, she was given with an opportunity to learn further in U.S.A at a workshop. Only a few privileged ones like her had a choice. But life gave her a hard hit, she was not privileged enough to continue and pursue her dreams. She financed her dance classes out of her pocket money and now she couldn’t afford all the expenses to go abroad. She couldn’t even stress her family as she belongs to a middle-class family and know how much pain her parents are taking to make her life better, she couldn’t ask for more. Being the only child, she had responsibilities to fulfill. Her parents expected her to be successful, earn a handsome salary and have consistency in life. She wanted to give it all back to her parents, live for them so she chose to be an engineer and now what she does is all work, work, and work. Nonetheless, how much she wanted to go with her passion, she chose to go and lead a life which most of us are forced to live as we fail to fight back our destiny.
PART-II
It was a great day for Shanaya, she was busy setting up things, making sure everything is perfect. While she was checking for the music system, she caught a glance of herself into the big mirror covering one of the walls of her dance academy, and, felt proud and ecstatic, like never before. Her happiness knew no bound as it was the D-day when her dreams were getting fulfilled. She had waited for five long years for this day to come. Her hard-work, her persistency, her talent made her one of the best and renowned dancers of India. She worked hard in her journey to get to this position but being born with a silver spoon, she was always provided with the best she could have. She was taught by the best dancers from the world and got the opportunity to pursue her dreams without giving a thought to other things in life.
Both Swati and Shanaya were from the same academy, equally talented, but Shanaya was able to grab the opportunity and live her dreams and Swati focused on finding stability in her life. In doing so, Swati just fulfilled everybody’s dream, gave happiness to everybody, made them proud but forgot to live a little for herself. This is how life works.
Compromising on your dreams to find stability, is it wrong? It’s not wrong, sometimes life leaves us with no choice but to quantify a simple livelihood over dreams. We say everybody is born with equal opportunities, equal freedom to follow their dreams, but it is not always the way we paint the picture in our mind.
It is mostly a Biased Beginning.
GNOSIS, NMIMS HYDERABAD 