A Dream Deferred

Introduction and Early Life

Things were already tense but his results made the environment more gloomy although he got more than he expected still his parents expected more of him. He was never fond of celebrating small achievement but for the fear of missing out he gave this a try( he certainly regretted !), later than night he had made up his mind, " I'll be an ENGINEER" possibly something he'll never forget ever..

Harish verma, he was named by his mother after she saw a dream about he being a god who had reincarnated himself in her home to bless her. All his childhood he lived with his mother away from his father in the small rural town of Seemapur, where good education was a luxury unlike frugal liquor shops which could be found open at every street corner.Still his parents gave him the best education they had in the town( at least this was that they told him). He attended the only high school in Seemapur which was surprisingly named Modern High School.

His initial years where not as that of any young child in India, he didn't like to play or roam around nor he liked to speak with friends or be actively participating in class, what fancied him was reading picture books about Sci-Fi heroes or Complex Machinery he enjoyed the company of toys and books over friends, this worried his parents as their child was 10 year old and had no friend, they tried talking to his teacher but nothing changed.Eventually he finished his 8th grade in Seemapur and then comeback home by his mother's transfer and starting living with his father in Lucknow.

His father's childhood was terrifying, being the oldest of 5 siblings he was unattended a lot in his childhood by him parents, his father( Harish's Grandad) didn't love him like his child instead kept him like his chauffeur, he was give the least of opportunities in the 5 siblings, this made him more possessive of his only child and he had many plans for him.

he wanted to provide his child everything he never got and he longed for, the first thing on his list was education in the prestigious school called City Montessori School and he began working on his plan.

Lucknow is an important city In the demographic of India it houses the finest delicacies of Indo-Middle Eastern food along with major monuments and important historical site of national importance, being the only metropolitan city in it's neighbouring area it receives a huge influx of students and working professional who can't afford a Tier-01 city like NewDelhi or Bangalore but wish to upscale themselves in their respective field, and sometimes the opportunities present here fell short to the number of candidates pursuing them this gives rise to cut throat competitions and exams which are very popular and common in India although Harish had never faced it earlier but now he was standing at the threshold of this competition and his father's wishes pushed him to participate and secure a place for himself.

Harish was totally unaware of this side of Lucknow which can be primarily attributed to his upbringing in a small town and in his naiveness he began his studies for CMS entrance test and interview utterly clueless about what future holds for him.

His father saw this and enrolled him in a "CMS entrance" specific tuition classes where he would be taught by a teacher only for entrance test and interview, harish was somewhat excited over his feeling of nervousness because at the end he LIKED TO STUDY and READ, but in no time he got to know he was "VERY" wrong. Classes in his tuition were not like the one's in school here he was not taught rather "trained" on how to clear the entrance test, teacher's focused more on what was important for the test over teaching the children, it took him some time to understand this fact as he was familiar to the traditional teaching method, but even after knowing this he continued his studies as before as his father was passively rooting for his sone to get into CMS and this was the only way. Been away from his father for a lot of time and developed a soft corner in his hear for his father and he wanted to give what his father wanted, things changed !! His father had originally started his classes with a wish that his son will attend the best school but now his child had made his father's wish his utter purpose in life with no exception for failure and this is also something very common witnessed in India..

His studies or training as he addressed it was going smooth (at least for his father) cause he was in turmoil, he wanted to study science but the entrance test didn't ask science and you guessed it the tuition didn't focus on if much, and Harish fixated on his wish which gave hime less time for study for the test and his grades went down, his teacher continuously advised him to study for the test as he'll get more than enough time to study science and read book in his high school year CMS but nothing satisfies the curiosity of a young mind and he couldn't stand the fact to leave science and SCi-fi to study language and social studies, this dilemma teased him and gave him headaches and he started questioning his decision but his soft corner motivated him to study for test over his intrinsic interest and somehow how managed to study for the test with balancing time for his interest.He continued this till his test

finally his test arrived, he wrote the test but was unsure about his selection of course he lied to his father but he couldn't hide it from his mother and told her how it really went, she was worried at first but after result they both were fine. Somehow he managed to pass the test with just passing all the individual cutoffs, certainly his guardians expected him to have passed the test owing to his natural love for reading and studying, this is a major conflict in the Indian mindset which is faced by many Indian students, teachers and parents here assume that their child will perform very well in TESTS just because he likes to study or read they fail to understand the details behind the test they don't know how to pass a test you don't need to be curious by nature or you can't be perfect in test taking by just being curious, they correlate their child's marks with his ability to questions or learn and in reality they are very different fields, still students who are naturally curious see no other path and continue to do as their teachers tell them and eventually they become good test takers and not inquisitors or curious. Harish had never thought about thinks like this because he never had the chance to do so, still he went to join CMS for his first year of high school.