What's Your Dream?

There is this little kid next door, only three years old and clever as hell. He's an overly exuberant kid whose restlessness knows no bounds. It is as though he finds it imperative to do more than whatever he is doing at that moment. Albeit exceedingly fast, and sometimes reckless, I realized that he can hardly keep up with the speed at which his processing centre functions!

And hence, he performs like most machines we have studied about - lagging the stimulus by quite a bit. Strangely though, today I discovered that he wasn't much unlike me! It was an alarming discovery.

Some days back, I had asked the kid what he wanted to do when he grew up; a question I take immense pleasure in asking because of the fact that I used to respond 'An Engine Driver'. He promptly answered, "A Neurosurgeon!"

I was impressed. I was amazed at the nonchalance of it all. He had his life planned out at such a tender age, and I swore to myself that day that if ever I'd meet him as a neurosurgeon some decades from now, I'd eat my hat.

Yesterday, I found myself smiling once more as I stood there observing the way he lay underneath his tricycle studying the moving parts therein. What happened next was unexpected as my flatmate found it prudent to walk up to the kid and ask him the same question - "Child, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The answer came out just as fast as it had the last time - "An Astrophysicist!" I smiled to myself, as my flatmate appreciated the vocabulary of the three-year old.

Today, I approached that kid once more, this time quite deliberately. I only wanted to know if he'd fall back on any of his previous choices. He was playing with a fancy spinning-top. I asked him the question - "Kid, what will you be when you grow up?"

The answer was unleashed - "The president." He continued fiddling with his toy. He never once looked up at me. I was so happy that I'd have bought the kid a lollypop! But then, he asked me a question next; one I was quite unprepared for. It came out of the blue:

"Bhaiyya, what do you want to be?"

I stood there silently. I looked around as the walls seemed to close in. I whispered to him, "I don't know." And I took the elevator for the ground floor. I'm afraid of seeing the child again.