Paper Dreams

 

“I do not want to go to school today Papa” said my five-year-old son. It was a chilly winter morning, and it was an effort to leave the comfort of the warm bed and get into the cold shower. I understood his feelings and asked him to go back to sleep if he didn’t feel up to it.

When the pattern repeated for the next few days, I got concerned. “Maybe there is more to this than just the cold weather” I thought. I decided to dig deeper into it by discussing this in our free time.

“What’s up Aarav. Why don’t you want to go to school?” I asked him when we were playing a board game.

“I don’t like school” came the curt reply.

“Aha, and why is that so?”

“Teacher is not happy with me”, there was sorrow in his eyes when he said this.

I was not going to give up so easily. ”Maybe you did something wrong and that is why the teacher punished you. What did you do?” I asked him.

“I didn’t finish my homework on time this entire week; I know that is wrong. But you know, I was working on my dream project all week, hence I didn’t do the homework.” he said innocently

“Which dream project? You said you will keep it as a secret, and share with me only when it is done, so I do not know anything about your project yet”

“You remember we have this poor boy works in the tea stall below. I had asked you why he works at such a young age. You had told me that he is forced to work and maybe couldn’t follow his dreams as he couldn’t go to school as he/his parents didn’t have money”

“Oh yes, I remember that one. How is that connected to your project?” I was very curious now.

“Well, I am making greeting cards, many many greeting cards. I will sell them and give him the money to follow his dreams” he said with a deadpan face.

I didn’t know how to respond to him, I just held him in my arms and hugged him tight.