PussyCat Dolls, Rajiv Gandhi and good ol' me!

These days, the Pussycat Dolls make a very regular appearance on MTV malaysia, shaking their booties while crooning "When I grow up I wanna be famous I wanna be a star I wanna be in movies..." The song itself is very typically PCD- Bimbotic, stupid and totally catchy. But that's not what this post's about. Hearing the song always gets me thinking about my ambitions as a kid. All the professions I suffixed to the statement “when I grow up, I want to be…” And as expected, none of it was straightforward or even slightly predictable.

In 1st standard, when most of the girls around me wanted to be princesses and the guys wanted to be engine drivers (or something equally childish), I wanted to be the Prime Minister of India. Yes you heard that right! And not in the way that people say ‘someday I want to be a rich man”. I was convinced, that was my calling in life. Of course my conviction was the result of a lot of things. A very charming and dashing Rajiv Gandhi, a whole lot of media swooning about the man, my very impressionable mind and perhaps my first and tiniest ever crush. I remember being very idealistic about it. And then came the bombing. And my political aspirations died with the man. You see I hadn’t realized prime Ministers could die doing their job. I decided it was too dangerous and that I liked living. I liked it much more than I liked the idea of being a PM.

So once the PM idea was shelved, I needed a new ambition. A new answer for when adults asked me “Beta, what do you want to be when you grow up”. And I settled on ‘Scientist’. I did not have any idea what exactly a scientist did or how long it took to become one. I couldn’t be bothered with practicalities like that. All I knew was that it was honorable to be a scientist and that I wouldn’t lose my life being one. Nothing else mattered. Of course soon I started hearing from old aunties and uncles that Scientist’s are mad. And I decided that I had to get a new ambition. I reasoned, what good was ‘honorable’ and ‘alive’ when everyone thought you were loony.

My next ambition was probably indicative of the stage of life I was in. A teenager drawn to prettiness and the pursuit of it, I decided to abandon all notions of honor and give in to my creative and flashy side. I wanted to be a fashion designer. I toyed with the idea for a while. I looked hard for some successful role models to point at and say “I want to be like them”. But I found none. What I found were people who did not treat fashion designing as a serious profession. Whenever I revealed my ambition with pride to anyone, what I heard most often was- “You want to be a tailor?” As you can imagine, that was a dampener.

I flirted with a range of professions after that, but none with enough conviction. I rejected them all for some reason or the other. Business woman- Not honorable and with low success rate (I was only a kid, remember), Hotelier- requires lots of moolah which I didn’t have, Chartered Accountant- appealed to my nerdy side but seemed like a lot of drudgery and hardwork. Amongst a blur of professions, I began to realize that I did not need to categorize my ambition. Or at least not in the typical sense. My ambition did not need to equate to a profession- A doctor or an enginner or an accountant.

And that was when I knew that what I really wanted to be when I grew up, was simply happy! So I gave into life and decided to swim with it.

So now I am all of 23 years and I have a profession. I am a consultant. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be so much more and so much else. I want to be a chef. I want to be an author. I want to be a traveller. I want to be a restaurateur. I want to be a presenter. I want to be a designer. And now after writing this post, I think I may again want to be the prime minister of India.

Here's to me and my dreams!

PS- So given my rekindled political aspirations, I might just eventually become the prime Minister of India. My acceptance speech would start something like- “First of all I would like to thank the inspiring gyrations and vocal renditions of the Pussy Cat Dolls. I wouldn’t be here without them. *sniff*” That would be some day for India. I would go down as a legend. Even bigger than Laloo. Now how’s that for an ambition!

Currently Reading: Lonely Planet Paris
Currently Listening: If it makes you happy- Sheryl Crow, Rescue me- Aretha Franklin, Ni Nachley- Imran feat. lucky