VISION….

Prajwal and swayam. These are the names of the cutest two 7 year olds I recently crossed paths with. Sitting in a corner, prajwal was trying to make swayam laugh who was mulling over something since the past half an hour that I had been there. Fascinated by those cute little things, I finally made some calculation in my head and walked over to their dingy corner.

Bringing out the mischievous 7-year old eavesdropper in me and very complacently, I tried to overhear and hearken bits and pieces of their animated conversation.  They were talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up, every child’s most esteemed moot point. One of them said he wanted to be a professor while the other aspired to become a doctor.

Coming to that, I wanted to become a journalist, I used to love the way they did their hair and drawled and gabbed into the mic. I always wanted to be the face in front of the camera, I craved all the attention and of course, not to mention all the posh clothes and accessories they donned.

Not straying from what I’ve been wanting to pen down since 2 days, I’ll ricochet back to P and S.  I can never, whatsoever, forget the flurry and exhilaration in their voices when they were talking about “the big thing”, tomorrow. I could see prajwal’s grasp on his friend’s hand tighten when he said he wanted to travel the world and make people better, that people dying around him made him feel sad and lonely. Swayam said he wanted to become the best teacher, someone his students would look upto.  The joviality, sanctity and bright outlook towards life for two little orphaned blind children who didn’t even know what a brutal world awaited them outside, brought tears to my eyes. Not for one second did I feel that they had any bitterness, spitefulness or antipathy towards life, they were optimistic, dreamy-eyed, normal kids who wanted to become a part of the crowd, walk hand in hand with the people walking on the roads outside, match their pace and get acknowledged. Their tranquil vision, simplicity and buoyancy made me scoff at myself for crying over petty and trivial things such as a broken heart or not enjoying my life to the maximum.

They taught me, without even knowing about my presence, that life is truly beautiful, it is giving, it’s priceless, substantial, absolute and blissful. I don’t know why I couldn’t sleep that night; I couldn’t dismiss their beaming, radiant faces. I could feel a gap pervading inside, a crack sealing. It felt as though my entire perspective towards life had changed overnight, I could feel the pessimist me shifting through space. I remember swayam asking his mate if he would still talk to him once he would become famous and make new friends. But the innocent question that engulfed my soul through and through was that would he call him once he became a doctor and cure him too, he said he wanted to be able to see his students and teach them from real books without having to feel them with his hands, that he wanted to see what he taught, see who he taught. I couldn’t sit there any longer, I left. The whole way back to my college, his question kept replaying in my head, I wanted to cry, scream, run away from myself. I felt disgusted with myself for being so greedy, egocentric and narcissistic.

Sometimes, some incidences reconstruct and refine you as a person. It happened to me that day. I was born again on the 24^th of December, 2013. The chastity and unworldliness of two pint-sized boys transformed me into someone I could never imagine myself to be just 2 days back. Life works in mysterious ways. All of us have that one angel who brings about that metamorphosis in our lives, I got two : )

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” 

-Albert Einstein

“Not all dreamers are winners, but all winners are dreamers. Your dream is the key to your future. The Bible says that, "without a vision (dream), a people perish." You need a dream, if you're going to succeed in anything you do.” 

                                                -Mark Gorman

Life sometimes shows you things you always chose to be blind to. They are the most beautiful and cherished apparitions. They are worth a king’s ransom, worth a wound bled for!

                                                          -Akankshaa Diksha Sharma