My Dreams Changed Their Name
The dream was never mine.
It was stitched into me — like a uniform I never chose, pressed and hung neatly on the door of my childhood. I wore it obediently. I even pretended it fit.
But it didn't. It never did.
I think I knew it the day I stepped into that city. The city with numbers for hearts and marks for lungs. Where everything breathed calculation. And no one had time for metaphors. Where silence wasn't poetic — it was wasted potential.
But I wasn't brave enough to name it.
Until one night, in that cramped hostel room with fluorescent guilt buzzing above me, I wrote it down:
I don't want this.
Just that. Four words. Scribbled in the back of a chemistry textbook, under equations I didn't understand, above dreams I couldn't feel.
It wasn't rebellion. It was confession.
They told us dreams were like trains — fast, focused, and if you missed them, you'd be left behind.
But what if your station never had one?
What if all you wanted was to walk?
Sometimes, I think about the kid I used to be — the one who scribbled poetry on math homework, who imagined scenes instead of solving sums. That kid didn't want a rank. He wanted a sentence that made someone pause.
But then came the grown-ups.
With their warnings and worries and whispers of failure.
"You're smart. Don't waste it."
"Writers don't earn."
"This is just a phase."
It was easier to nod. To swallow their dreams because they were louder than mine. More respected. More predictable. More... real.
So I studied. I tried.
But some things don't grow just because you water them.
The mock test I skipped for her birthday — it didn't matter in the end. I could've aced it or failed it. Either way, I wasn't meant to be there.
Because while others measured progress in marks, I was measuring it in metaphors.
Aarav, who writes when no one reads.
That's who I was.
That's who I am.
And the strangest thing is — once I admitted it, the world didn't fall apart.
Nothing exploded.
The sky didn't collapse.
I just felt... free. Quietly. Internally. Like the first deep breath after pretending to be someone you're not.
Of course, I didn't tell my parents. I still said "studies are going well" on the phone. Still acted like I had control. Because telling them the truth would be like burning their map — the one they built to get me somewhere safe.
But safety isn't the same as peace.
And peace, I was beginning to learn, came from choosing your own name for the dream.
I started writing again. Not just journal entries or secret stories. But pages. Real pages. The kind that dared to be read.
I'd sit on the rooftop of the hostel when everyone else studied. The wind didn't care about rank. It only asked: what do you want to say?
And I answered.
I wrote about Niya. About that almost-touch. About the joke she didn't laugh at, and the silence she never noticed.
I wrote about the ache of leaving without goodbye. About the smell of pressure and the way failure feels like fog — constant, clingy, but not permanent.
I wrote about Yuvaan, too. About the way he said "bro" like it could carry grief.
Most of all, I wrote about a boy who never got chosen.
But chose to feel anyway.
My dreams didn't shatter. They just changed.
They stopped being about proving anything. And started being about giving.
Not success. Not fame.
But something quieter.
Like a line that lingers.
Like a sentence someone repeats without knowing why.
Like a story that finds a girl on a random shelf, years later, and makes her stop.
Just stop.
And feel something.
One night, I imagined what it would be like if Niya ever read something I wrote.
Not knowing it was mine.
What would she feel?
Would she smile in that tilted way?
Would she reread the last paragraph?
Would she think of someone else?
Or would she pause... and for a second, feel like someone saw her?
Even if she never knew it was me.
Maybe that's all I wanted.
Not to be known.
But to be felt.
I didn't quit coaching. Not yet. I still went to class. Still solved problems I didn't care about. Still laughed at the right jokes, nodded at the right places.
But I wrote more than I studied.
And for the first time, I didn't feel guilty about it.
Because somewhere between formulas and failure, I found something that felt like home.
And maybe that was the real dream.
Not the destination. Not the applause. Not even the story.
But the act of writing itself.
Choosing every word like it mattered.
Because it did.
Because I did.
Even if no one said so.
Even if no one read it.
Even if she never saw me.
I saw myself.
And I knew —
My dreams had changed their name.
And for once,
I was the one who named them.