The collective dreams

‘Aim high’, ‘Dream big’, ’Reach for the stars’ are some of the favorite terms used nowadays. There are the inspirational writers to help you get the maximum out of you.

In a free country I can dream of anything. But in a state controlled country, like Cuba, even your dreams are controlled. You have to achieve what the state tells you. Even if you don’t meet the expectations it is perfectly fine but you cannot cross the limit they have set out for you.

So if you ask anyone where he will prefer to live, the answer will be quite predictable. Everyone will prefer a place with minimum laws to control them. Since our media filled our news space with ‘achievers’, we always aspire to be one among them. Recently I got hold of a book which had the author interviewing a few business tycoons of India. I was surprised about a common claim made by all. They say that they rose to the top without paying a single paisa as a bribe. Anyone who read it will immediately get the picture that any honest man can do a business and reach the top.
But is it the case in real life? Until the 80’s Indians idolized the common man striving to make his ends meet. Our film stars were coolies or middle class students or honest cops without getting promoted because of their ideals. We loved the ordinary politicians like Lalu. We believed in the saying ’Behind every great wealth lies a great crime.’

But soon Indians graduating from American B schools came back home to do business. As markets opened up more and more young Indians took the plunge. We developed a dream somewhat similar to the great American dream. So our ideal man shifted from the common hero to Ambanis and Tatas. Our film heroes started living in palatial homes with a helipad and pool in their home.

The Indian youths started aiming for the top slots. It became pretty ok to bypass a few inconvenient laws or influence the Finance Minister to tweak a few laws for your sake. The Indian businessmen started extending their influence in media. Media closed their eyes towards their small mistakes and started whitewashing our business tycoons. So it doesn’t matter if you have achieved your wealth through the wrong means as long as you are favorite with the media.

These two incidents happened recently:
The Andhra CM died recently in copper crash. He brought Congress back to power both in state and centre. He became the poster boy of the party and so when he died it was conveniently forgotten how he openly abetted bribes. People forgot about how his son Jagan made a fortune for the family when his dad was the CM
Down here in Kerala the young scion of a business family was killed by some goons. It was ordered allegedly by a rival hotel group from whom Paul had snatched a prime plot of land. Instead of looking into the involvement of real estate mafia behind this, media got itself busy in finding out the connection the goon had with the son of a minister. The attention of the public was diverted.

So in short nobody cares what your dreams are. Nobody cares how you chase it. What matters in the end is you have to get it. The success or failure merely depends on the end result.

I always wanted to watch ‘Requiem for a Dream’. All my friends who loved good movies had recommended this one. But it was only recently that I got a chance to watch it.

In this movie we get to see four people with a dream of their own.

The mother wants to see his son settled down and married. She gets hooked to a talk show and she dreams about appearing in it wearing her favorite red dress.
Her son, his girlfriend and his other friend all have the dreams of their own which is somewhat like making it big in terms of money.
The mother fails to slim down by dieting. So she turns to a doctor for help. The doctor prescribes pills to which she gets addicted. Her behavior changes and she is hospitalized in the end.
The son and his friends turns to heroine trade, They plan to open up a boutique with that after earning some cash. But things go wrong. His girl friend turns to prostitution for earning the drug. His friend ends up in jail and has to do hard labor and fight with the withdrawal symptoms and the son has his arm amputated.

The final scene shows all of them in bed curling in to foetal positions dreaming about their dreams.

Achieving our dreams gives us a high or in other words a sense of fulfillment. People who couldn’t get there will look for alternative means. It needn’t be drugs. It can be blogging (in my case).

While our text books and media glorify the men who scaled the heights we fail to see the people who fell by the wayside. We must be able to draw inspirations out of them.

We criticize and reject caste system. I am one among them who hates it. But I cannot stop myself from wondering about the positives of it. In a society we need different varieties of people engaged in different activities, for its self sustenance. In a free society every one aims for the top and so the people who fail is discriminated against. May be caste system was created visualizing to give equal status to everyone in society. It might be our mistake that we misused it.