Only recently did I realize that there was nothing heavier to carry, than the burden of expectations. And this happened after ‘The Boss’ blog was published. Okay, I’m not comparing myself to a Sachin Tendulkar who carries on his already damaged back the expectations of a billion cricket crazy fanatics. But then a small set of readers who did read the blog, ended up asking the question “When are you posting the next one”. Trust me, when somebody asks this question the feeling is nothing short of ‘Ecstasy’. But what it also causes is ‘Fear’ – the fear of failing to meet the set expectations – the fear of failing to do something as good as the last one – the fear of being a total failure the next time around. This was definitely one of the reasons for the absolute absence of any activity on the blog. But after a hiatus of over two months, I should say better sense has prevailed and I have finally decided to see for myself, what more ramblings I could come up with.
Very recently I read an interesting write-up about somebody’s tryst with different professions and how his eventual career path turned out to be. Apart from being interesting, it got me to retrace my own path. To think about it, mine definitely has been the least conventional. In fact it has been a roller coaster of fantasies. I have always been an uncontrollable and unstoppable dreamer. And most times than not, my dreams have very closely flirted with Insanity.
It must have all started when I was around the age of 6. My mom, for the first time took me to a bank and the fascination was instant – loads of people came to the bank and gave all their money to one person sitting behind a counter. Now why would I want to do anything else when there was this great option right in front of me? Instantly I knew that I wanted to work in a Bank. Even today I vividly remember dreaming – “after a hard day’s work at the bank, I used to collect the few sacks of currency and carry them back home, to stock it in a large iron vault, that I had built in my palatial house”. Shortly later, I decided that the best thing to do was to become like my own Dad. He was into the Construction Business and I had often seen him distribute lots of cash to his employees every Saturday. Now that made a lot of sense; wasn’t the Man who gave away cash, richer than the man who collected them. So my dad was definitely richer than the man in the bank – after all, my Dad always gave money and never had to take any. So the next few years were filled with dreams of becoming a businessman - until a simple class test forced me to rethink my decision. There was a question that was asked in one of the class test – “What is your Father’s Profession?” That must have been the most difficult question I had ever faced in my life. Not because I didn’t know the answer to the question, but because I didn’t know the spelling of ‘BUSINESS’. After jotting down all possible options, I finally decided to go the easier route and wrote just 4 letters - “MICO”. I had a lot of classmates with fathers working in MICO and nobody suspected the validity of my answer. The teacher suspected no foul play and eventually I passed the test. That day I decided that I wouldn’t put my kids through the same struggle – not knowing how to spell your father’s profession was quite a problem indeed. So for some time after that, I dreamt of a possible adult life as an employee of MICO.
Towards my higher primary school, a huge renaissance in my approach took place. Thanks to all the physics lessons in school, I suddenly wanted to become a Scientist. I dreamt about my photograph appearing in all the Physics Text Books and children being taught about the inventions of this world famous Indian scientist. Then one friend did me a huge favour by letting out a great truth – “Sharath, they have already invented everything in this world, so how can you become a scientist now”? My life felt shattered. There didn’t seem to be any more purpose in my life. I remember the next few days of my life being all dark and gloomy.
They say kids become a lot more logical as they grow up – but in my case it was vice-versa. I reached high school with this huge dream of becoming a ‘Super-Hero’. Not the kind that wears their underwear over the pants!!! I was this smooth talking, smartly dressed, very polished, super hero who bashed up all the bad guys and always managed to save the ‘Damsel in Distress’. I had thought it all – I used to wear only suits – Drive around in a sleek Contessa Classic (guys, Contessa was the best we had a few years ago) - Had all the girls swooning over me – I carried a ‘Silver Revolver’ in my shoulder holster (you read it right, it was a ‘Silver Gun’) – and most importantly I had a written authorization from the President of India, to use my Gun wherever, whenever and against whoever I wanted (amidst all this insanity I had still been logical enough to think about getting a permission from the president). The superlative Inferiority complex that I carried throughout my early teens actually pulled me deeper into the realms of this fantasy. Most of my dreams could have become good Bollywood scripts - “One fine day, I get a distress call on my Car Radio Phone (Mobile phones were still unknown then, but my ‘Contessa’ had a custom made Radio that could get distress calls from the helpless). My own school had suddenly been attacked by hundreds of gun wielding militants. These long haired, bearded scums were holding the school and all the children to ransom. Their demand – “give Bangalore to Pakistan or they kill all the teachers and children”. Though I had very little sympathy for the teachers, being the Super Hero I was, I immediately rush to the school. The government is already contemplating on giving Bangalore away to Pakistan and I have very little time to do anything. But then after an hour of extreme action, involving – “being air dropped onto the school terrace, life threatening physical combat with the militants, some accurate gunfire and ultimately killing the kingpin” - I finally save the school, the kids, the teachers and Bangalore from being given to Pakistan. ‘Super Hero Sharath’ once again to the rescue”!!! This was one dream that was replayed a thousand times, each time a little more refined than the previous one.
College days began and ended more with Fiction thrillers, than Physics and Chemistry. Sidney Sheldon, James Hardley Chase, Jeffrey Archer and Robin cook provided enough inspiration to look beyond a life as a doctor or an Engineer. They also gave me enough confidence that my dreams were indeed realistic. After all if the heroes in their novels could do it, so could I. So each time I read a book, I wanted to be whatever the central character of that book did. I dreamt of become a ‘Hotelier’ (after reading ‘Kane and Abel’), a ‘Newspaper Baron’ (after reading the ‘Fourth Estate’), a ‘Construction Magnate’ (after reading ‘When the stars shine down’)..... Life and dreams revolved around these bestsellers.
My Engineering life brought in a very realistic approach into my life. The 18 to 20 hours of activity that went into each day took a huge toll. I no longer had time to fantasize. All I dreamt about was getting through the Campus Recruitment and being placed in a good company. However there used to be those rapid, short term dreams, each associated with a new recruiter coming to campus. When there was an announcement that a Pune based company was coming in for recruitment, the next few days were spent dreaming about a life in Pune. This way, even before facing a single Interview, I had already lived a couple of days each at, Daewoo Motors - New Delhi, Crompton Greaves – Nashik, Mahindra Motors – Pune, L& T – Mysore.....
My first professional job was a dream in itself; but one that I had not dreamt about. Much to the envy of the rest of the class, 3 of us got into the ‘World’s Number One Manufacturer of Robots & CNCs’. The pay was quite envious too. However this phase didn’t last long. Inspite of warnings from almost everyone I knew, I quit. My dreams were now of becoming an overnight Millionaire. Thus started an year and a half of hysterically maddening tribulations. The only thing I dreamt during this period was to become Super-Rich before I turned 30. I must have tried the strangest of ways to make money during this period. Eventually I got out of my own self inflicted torments to do saner things in life.
In between all these madness there were times when I wanted to be the next Milind Soman. Sometimes modeling was replaced by the desire to become the next Sunny Deol. And other times, it was the next Mathew Hayden. But it didn’t take me long to realize that it needed a lot more than just dreams to do all that and eventually settled down comfortably with I’m doing today.
‘Old habits die hard’ and I’m back to dreaming once again. This time it is to become a Best Selling writer. For someone who had not written anything worthwhile until ‘The Blog’ happened – it certainly is far away from realism. But then the very fact, that all of you have managed to read my Blogs and still remain sane, is no less a motivation. Whether it happens or not ‘Sharath Chandra the writer’ certainly sounds good (and I bet would look good too). Probably a few years later I would dismiss this as just another one of my unfeasible dreams. Nevertheless my Dreams would continue to remain Infinite.....
