My Word With The World: October 2011

dreaming little boy 2 There was this cute little boy who had a very weird dream one day. And he continued to have the same dream for several nights to come. He had several other dreams, but this one was the weirdest and also the one which he enjoyed the most. And he dreamt for that dream to come true. As a little boy he never knew that this dream would change him and his destiny forever – his desires, his career and himself. What dream did he have?

He dreamt that he was floating and flying in his room. He was floating upto the ceiling and was moving to other rooms as well. It was fun! He was thoroughly enjoying this experience and wished that it never ended. But as all dreams come to an end this too ended, as his nanny woke him up for he was getting late for school. But he was thinking of the dream all the way to his school and as well during the class hours.

It was not long enough that he discovered that he was not the only one who had this dream, as he listened his English teacher narrate the story of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ at school.

There were several nights when he closed his eyes wishing to dream that same dream! Experiencing floating and flying in dreams and listening & reading it in fairly tales was fun, but he longed for something real.

It was not long enough did he find that he was not alone in this pursuit. He learnt at school of the Wright Brothers who wanted to fly and made the first aeroplane. But he has seen aeroplanes, those that take off, fly and land. But his dream was not that. In his dreams he was floating, flying and was going up, up and up.

And one day at school his science teacher taught him that it is the gravitational force that keeps all things fixed to the ground and the absence of which means that all of us would be floating; like that of inside a ‘Rocket’ or in ‘Space’. It was very fascinating and REAL! He wanted to know more about Rockets and Space.

In a few weeks time his dad told him that he will take him to a book store and that he could pick any book that he wanted (but not to cost more than 100 rupees)! He was very excited at the thought that his father was taking him to a book store and that weekend his dad did take him and all through the way he was only thinking about books on rockets and space! That store had only books in the vernacular and he was interested to read in English. But as he was browsing through the books at the shelf one book caught his eyes. A book on science by a known author Sujatha (who too was brought up in his hometown, Trichy and by his grandparents, like him). He was only in the 6th grade but was familiar with Sujatha’s writings in Junior Vikatan and Ananda Vikatan. This book was on science facts and lots on the space & universe and he liked it! He immediately grabbed that book and his father bought it for him.

space and rockets As soon as he came home, he started reading it and completed it in a couple of nights. He learnt lots about rockets, astronauts, planets, galaxies, stars, satellites and space travel. His fascination started to become his passion. His dreams started to become his desire. And he wanted to make his crazy craving to fly & float as his career!

He was so much fascinated that he even enjoyed the slightest moment of the ‘floating’ feeling while going around in a Giant Wheel and he desired for that moment to last forever!

astronaut He also bought and read more books on Astronomy from ‘Higginbotham’s’ and ‘New Century Book House’ and at Book Fairs. As he grew up Physics and Astrophysics became his favourite subjects and he also began to read ‘Classical Mechanics’ when he was in the 9th grade! And he was looking for options to learn and experience science and that made him to become a member of ‘Indian Science Congress Association’ which only remained as ‘Membership Card’! As he read the book ‘The first man on the moon’ by Scholastic publishers and on Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, he wanted to go to the NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) of the USA. As he read on the first Indian to space, Rakesh Sharma, he also wanted to go to ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization)!

As he neared his completion of 12th grade he started to look for options to pursue higher education in Astronomy/Astrophysics and applied for many universities in the United Kingdom. But this pursuit did not materialize as his father refused to support his education in abroad. It so appeared that his childhood dreams had come to an end. It seemed as if all his hopes and dreams would never come true. He even started to question his life’s purpose and almost decided to quit (to read this and his life changing experience read I Quit)

After 12 years of all this had happened, as he was traveling in a train he was remembering these and was thinking whether his childhood dream would never come true! Just then he remembered a verse in the Bible -

rapture “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (ESV)