I want to be.

One afternoon in class 8th, our teacher had raised her voice and asked us,''Each of you tell me what do you want to become in your life?'' Replies were heard, most of them wanted to become engineers and doctors. There were few who wanted to be teachers,CAs and IAS officers, rest cited what their bench mates wanted to be. There were friends who were good at portraying teachers with big noses in the last pages of their book,never intended to be cartoonists, friends who were so good with free-kicks and cover-drives, none of them replied to be a footballer or a cricketer, the ones who had designed the stage for the annual function never thought of being an architect. Today most of them are engineers,even the always wanting to be doctors, teachers, IAS officers are engineers. All of them, including me even, are on the way to achieve things which we thought could not be achievable if we went to be something else in life in India especially. Is that the truth of are life, we never explored. In our 20s we are earning good, have a bunch friends to enjoy with, a comfortable life, a job which is manageable , which sums of our life lived till now as the best one could get.at our age. We were happy till the other day, when the same old teacher mailed us asking another question to us,''Each of you tell me did you become what you wanted to be in you life?'' Replies weren’t heard in the classrooms this time, but the answers were made to oneself, and the conscious was bitter, it was cheated, carrying the guilt to have opted the easier way out for the attainment of things that were needed and required. This night I sleep dreaming of old artifacts lying deep down in some dungeon, I sleep dreaming of discovering tombs and coffins, of studying old clay pots, that noon I had stood up and answered,'' Madam, I want to be an archaelogist''.

cheers,

dipankar