Dreams on Fire!

It was a noisy hall, but all I could hear was the thud of my heart. The compere had just invited another dignitary to the podium. A bald man wearing a black suit walked from the dais holding an envelope in his hand and greeted the crowd with a smile. The chatter of the audience did not reduce when the bald man said, “Here is the list of the 21 participants who have qualified for the national level contest in the alphabetical order…”, but the darkness inside my head turned pitch black.

The theme was “Economic and digital”. Participants had to make a presentation on how technology could be used for the upliftment of the poor and development of the impoverished classes of society. I did mine on “Distant Online Education” and spoke of how much easier, cheaper and effective it would be to spread education using internet. Out of a hundred and twenty participants from the state, only twenty one would qualify for the national level contest. And right from the beginning I knew that I would be on top of the list. But now that they were announcing the names in alphabetical order, I expected Mohammed Irfan to be somewhere in the middle.

Dreams – they can literally choke you. On one hand there is this hope of experiencing inexpressible joy, that can overwhelm you. And on the other hand there is a terrorizing fear of losing what you ventured upon.

Having your picture in the newspaper, to have your name called out in the school assembly, to see your parents show off your achievements in front of a relative… For a tenth grader, these could be his wildest dreams. And as I awaited the results, I knew that those dreams were just seconds away from being real. I could almost feel my finger touch that moment – the moment that I had nurtured in my heart for 4 long months, the moment that I had dreamed of every night in the past 16 weeks – it was just seconds away.

And as the bald man called out names, the other side of dreams grabbed hold of me – heart wrenching fear. 4 months of hard-work and hopes and aspirations and expectation would be flushed out if my name was not read by him. No amount of confidence in the world could suppress that fear, or even diminish it.

“LOKESH P. NAIR”, he announced. The next letter was ‘M’. I could feel my chest compress, my breath falter, each second seemed like forever. Two sided monster – Dream. I dreaded every passing second, did not want time to move at all. But I couldn’t wait for my name to be announced, it might be next! I rubbed my hands restlessly and the bald man announced, “MAHESH SRIDHAR”.

There cannot be too many names with ‘M’. The next had to be Mohammed. This is it! Here is comes. Speakers screamed, “MOHAMMED NIZAM…”

I – J – K – L – M – N… Alas! ‘N’ did come after ‘I’. Now there was no way ‘Irfan’ would be read out. It was over…

At that moment I was able to console myself. But peace didn’t last long and within one second frustration took complete control. “BLOODY BLUNDALEOMITE – WHAT COULD BE WRONG?” Anger was pumped into every cell of my body. Tears gushed out of my eyes. I clenched my wrists and pressed them on my face. “MRIDHULA D. JOSEPH”

I couldn’t imagine one flaw in the project. There was no way I couldn’t win. It was perfect… except… Except one spelling mistake that I clearly recall… Could that be the reason I lost? I had misspelt my name. ‘Mohammed’ was written as ‘Muhammed’…. Wait a minute… R – S – T – U… The speaker announce the next name, “MUHAMMED IRFAN”

There was another moment of peace. One moment of silence. One moment that passed on like any other, just one. The very next second I exploded joy. Fears vanished, victory achieved and dreams come true… I ran out of the auditorium and simply could not stop shouting. Wrestling away friends who slapped my back, I screamed!