My dream is to be background dancer,” one of my students wrote, for an exercise in which I asked them to describe their dream. I found the modesty of their dreams wrenching. Even after I had told them the story of APJ Abdul Kalam, a modest boatman’s son, who became president of India, thinking of a dream for themselves was, well, a nightmare. They had never done it before; most are still at the “yeh allowed hai?” phase of Rani in Queen. Slowly, some said engineer and IPS officer, then, tentatively, dancer and artist. A girl wrote, “My dream is railway ticket collector and all-India tour” — I was most impressed.

From a session at Patuck Technical High School and Junior College