Dreams, daydreams and fairy tales
Man likes to
dream. This is especially so when the dreams are sweet. Barring
nightmares, there is no one who would not relish a dream. Even a
popular song says, "allow me to see my dream. Do not disturb".
Our concern here is not so much the nocturnal dream or what
one sees during sleep. The focus here is on daydreams, dreams of
statesmen and inventors, of adventurists and politicians that
had an impact on the lives of the people.
Wilbur and Orville Wright dreamt of flying and man does fly
now. Now there are giant airplanes roaming the globe crossing
wide oceans. The sound barrier too has been broken. Konstatin
Tsiolkovsky dreamt of breaking through Earth's gravitational
field and conquering space and man has today conquered space. He
is even probing distant worlds. There were social dreamers too.
From Spartacus to Che Guevara they have been dreaming of a
better world. Though much progress has been achieved the dream
is yet to be realised fully.
"There is a dreamer in the Kremlin", said celebrated science
fiction writer H. G. Wells speaking about Lenin who had a dream
of making Russia a developed country through electrification.
That dream did come true. From a backward nation Russia emerged
as a world super-power, though the society he built imploded
later for other reasons.
Sri Lanka also had its dreamers. Wimalasurendra dreamt of
harnessing hydropower for the country's development, another
dream come true. Rampala was a dreamer who developed our railway
network.
There is also a dreamer at Temple Trees. Long before shifting
his abode there he dreamt of a unified state, a state free of
terrorism for Sri Lanka. His dream has been fulfilled today.
It is not enough to dream. It is necessary to pursue the
dream till it is realised. That needs determination and
singleness of purpose.
The dreamer at Temple Trees has other dreams too. Mathata
Titha or the dream of eradicating the drug menace and alcoholism
is being realised progressively. The dream of taking ICT to the
village youth, the dream of developing English language skills
among the youth, the dream of making the country self-reliant in
staple food crops etc. are being realised at a rapid pace.
Having fulfilled his basic dream of uniting and freeing the
country he has spelt out a new dream. It is about making a leap
towards a developed modern nation with its cultural identity
intact.
We also come across other dreamers too. Their dreams,
however, have turned out to be just modern fairy tales. For
example, there was a dream of building a parallel rail track to
the South in the wake of the disastrous tsunami five years ago
and a proposal to run a cable car to reach the Sri Pada peak.
Then there was also the dream of providing each and every
citizen with eight kilograms of pulses. All these dreams have
become fairy tales.
It is necessary to identify dreamers who could deliver from
dreamers whose dreams would turn into fairy tales the sooner
they are spelt out. It should be easy as differentiating seed
from chaff.
Reflections on relativity
Everything in the
Universe is supposed to be relative and not absolute. As
Einstein showed even time and space which remain eternal are
relative to each other.
Relativity, of course, could be established far too easily by
examples from everyday life. Take for example people's habits,
customs, fashions and so on. Several decades ago the Western
dress was the exclusive privilege of the social elite,
especially of those who could command the Queen's language.
The Radio, TV at the time of their introduction were
affordable only to the rich and wealthy. Now they are common
household goods. The same goes for many electrical and
electronic apparatus of household usage.
Few decades ago those males who had their hair tied in a knot
were ridiculed by the young. Today the hair knot is in vogue
among the youth, even in the cities and among the elite.
Similarly the mobile phone was a status symbol when it first
arrived in the market. Now it is in almost everybody's hands.
The other day the media carried a picture of a beggar
contacting somebody on his mobile phone. Few decades ago males
wearing pigtails and earrings would have been considered insane.
Today it is 'high fashion'.
Yes, everything changes. Everything is relative.
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