Always the dreamer
Yesterday I was yelling at my son as I was teaching him Science because he had a faraway look in his eyes, which meant he was either dreaming about the Beyblades cartoon or thinking about how many more Beyblades he can accumulate. I told him, 'Stop dreaming!' and then realised how many times I'd heard that phrase when I was small.
Back in school, I was never the brightest student. I was always average and I consider standard seven as the midpoint in my life where I changed. It was like I suddenly woke up to the fact that unless I really worked hard, I couldn't go beyond average. Some people think I'm over motivated and this is probably where it all started. Anyway, before standard seven, I was one of those kids that teachers used to relegate to the back of their mind.
In standard five, we had this huge classroom on the third floor (fellow Baldwinians and classmates, correct me if I'm wrong), and it overlooked this garden in the compound next to our building. My school was pretty huge and we were just in one of the many buildings there. My favourite occupation was staring out of the window and dreaming. I don't recall what I dreamed about but school was so tough and all the subjects suddenly seemed so overwhelming that dreaming about anything else seemed so much better.
I was pulled up quite a few times by different teachers for not knowing what was happening in class. I'd stare at the trees, at the clouds in the patch of sky that was visible and would wish I could be anywhere but where I was sitting. It felt a lot like jail, being cooped up in a class with teachers insisting on teaching us stuff that I found pretty useless. (I still don't know of what use trigonometry will be to me apart from helping me teach my son). But 'stop dreaming' was a phrase I heard very often.
The day dreaming activity had to come to an end after standard five because our standard six classroom was atrocious. It was tiny, airless and had windows that didn't look out over anything spectacular. If memory serves right, one of the windows looked out over the field which was a cause of distraction for all of us. Girls (my classmates from back then), remember Laura Gill dorm? Can you imagine how sixty of us fit inside that classroom? God!
Since I couldn't do much day dreaming, something else took place. I began telling stories to the class. In free periods or when the teacher was late, I'd come up in front and spin some weird stories to them and everyone would listen, some feeling bored and some feeling incredulous I suppose. I hadn't started writing anything back then and most of the stories I told them were not my own. At home, we watched a lot of black and white Hindi movies, and most of the stories I told the girls were inspired from there itself.
I don't want to tell my son to stop dreaming because it's dreams that have brought me here, so far. I've never told my son that he has to achieve something or do a particular thing because I want him to do what makes him happy. But dreaming about Beyblades? Who am I to stop him from dreaming about those horrid contraptions? Even as I sorely detest the sound that Beyblades make when they hit the ground, I know that right now as he's writing his Science exam( it's the last one), he can't wait to get back home and team up with the neighbourhood boys for their Beyblade fight. In fact, even as he's writing about cross pollination and how to prevent demagnetisation of magnets, I can vouch that he's dreaming.
