Dreams on Wheels

He worked far away from his country, creating a family out of the other young bachelors who worked at the office – playing pranks, eating with them, confiding in them. His parents lived in a small town in the depths of India – and when he offered to buy them a car they protested the expense out of habit. He wore down their resistance, telling them to go ahead, visit the showroom, pick a color, take a test-drive. After repeated assurances that he could afford the EMIs, they accepted his offer to buy a car while he waited in the sharp desert sun to take a bus to work every morning.

The car was chosen, the color picked, the downpayment made, with him pulling the strings by remote control with the power of a foreign-currency chequebook. They drove it home, stopping by the temple to submit a coconut to the Gods before driving home along palm-lined narrow paths in a sturdy 4-wheeler that shone black against the green all around.

And he sat at his faraway desk, with a picture of the car on his desktop, answering to clients and pouring his creativity into making a living. Dream 1, at least, was achieved.