The Great Indian Dream Legacy

We often talk about dreams. Big dreams, small dreams, possible dreams and even impossible dreams. People say, “I have a dream that one day I’ll…” Perhaps own a house on the seaside, set up a business empire, get a book published, be an actor in Bollywood. We don’t stop to wonder why we have that dream in the first place. Sometimes though, when we come across hurdles, get knocked down or receive a massive shock, we do wonder if it’s even worth it, or if we’d really want to go through all that in the first place.

Our generation is one with parents who couldn’t fulfill their dreams because of their parents who couldn’t do the same because of their parents. So it’s basically a hereditary thing: people have dreams when they’re young, think they can achieve it, but then get stuck because they come to a diversion where they have to choose either what their parents expect them to do, or what they really want to do. Then comes the stereotypical ideology of ‘sanskaar’—another set of beliefs that Indian society has imposed on individuals over the millenia of its evolution so that happiness becomes a rare commodity which people have to chase. They reluctantly choose to do as their parents expect, and then live their lives regretting not choosing their dreams. And then comes marriage—ideally an arranged one, what with all the ‘kundli-matching’ and gossip about who is giving what jewelry. And that, essentially is followed by children, and then a hope that what they couldn’t do, their children will do. This being the infinite loop executed by the societal system in India, brings upon us, by the principle of induction, the ‘responsibility’ of fulfilling the dreams that our parents could never fulfill. So then, my question is, who is going to fulfill our dreams? Society says, our children. Oh really?

When we realise the importance of listening to our heart, happiness will cease to be a rare commodity and instead be found everywhere. Won’t that be nice? I mean, who doesn’t want to be happy? In fact, our predecessors have denied their dreams because if they denied what their parents told them to do, their parents would have been hurt. And hurting your parents is definitely not good. And then, enter human conscience—it doesn’t let you be happy because you regret what makes you happy. You regret having chosen your dreams because it hurt your parents, and that’s a wrong thing to do! Thus, our predecessors obediently broke their own hearts and did what their parents told them to do because “parents always know what’s good for you”. But then, the dream came back when they became parents themselves, and since they now had the responsibility of bringing the children up, they had just one option in sight—putting the responsibility of fulfilling their dreams on the shoulders of their children without even asking them whether they want to do it or not. Besides, the ancient ‘sanskaars’ were already beginning to percolate the minds of the children. As a result, they too, unquestioningly accepted what their parents wanted of them. And by the generations, this culture has reached us. Can we break it? Can we stop being losers and actually make our life worthwhile while we have it? The answer is, yes! All we need is a little love and understanding. All we need is not to be judged for our flaws and instead be encouraged to do what we love.

What our parents need to realise is that we weren’t born to fulfil their dreams. We were born so that we could make them proud. No parent would ever be proud of a child who failed. And then how do you expect we will succeed in what you thought you’d succeed in? How do you expect an artistically inclined child to be an engineer just because you couldn’t be one? I mean, we’re not you, are we? My point is, I think we need to break this vicious cycle of one generation’s dreams being passed on to the next because “what will people say?” governs our decisions. We need to be people who succeed, people who dream and then dare to achieve them. We need to show society that the rules it made for us—fulfilling our parents’ dreams and saving our own for our children to fulfill—are meant to be broken. We need to cease being people who follow the pattern set by society. If flowers were similar to leaves, we’d probably never take much interest in them. Flowers are pretty because they are not what they should have been in order to ‘fit in’ their surroundings—leaves.

So, now it's on us to decide what we choose. I know I have the potential and I will fight for nothing else the way I will for my very own dreams. So I choose my dreams. What do you choose: sanskaar, or happiness?