From the Diary of a Dreamer

What comes to your mind when you think about the word “visionary”?

As per Webster’s College dictionary it means a person who has audacious, highly idealistic, speculative or, impractical ideas or schemes; dreamer

“Asambhaba Sapna” which means Impossible dream is a play I wrote when I was nine years old. The moral of the play was similar to the idea of the movie “ Pay it Forward”

Throughout my life I have seen many dreams, which were considered impossible and unrealistic by my peers and family members.

I was born and raised in rural India, in some of the most underdeveloped parts of the world. I still remember going to my primary school which was held under a tree, with one teacher teaching all subjects and from 1st grade to 5th grade. I was very inquisitive and always ranked at top of my class.

January 26th 1977, I was five years old, visited my classmate’s house and had lunch with her family who belonged to a lower caste—the news spread in our small town and my grandmother demanded that I should be purified before entering the house. I innocently asked her you don’t ask me to get purified when I play with Sudhir (a friend who belonged to the higher caste)—Do what I say she said and I kept on asking her why, why, why. My elders for not abiding by their rules beat me up and I passed out. In my dream that day, I visualized that I grew up and I became the catalyst who wiped out untouchability and the caste system from Indian society.

As I grew older, more thoughtful and absent minded I became, always concerned about bigger issues facing my community, my state, my country and even the world. I became an ordinary student during my Engineering College career, as I became an avid reader of Swami Vivekananda and many great spiritual and political leaders and lose interest in physical science. Instead of calculating the relative velocity of two trains going in opposite direction, I would come up with a philosophy of two people meeting even if they go in exact opposite directions as the world is almost shaped as a sphere. Not to mention, my nickname in my college was "MahaPagal" (means a Great Mad Guy) instead of my lastname "MahaPatra" meaning someone with a great character. Also, during this stage of my career I wrote letters to many world leaders. I was concerned about the rising fundamentalism of religions around the world and discovered the similarities between religions of the world.

July 4th 1993, in the midst of my college’s final examination, five people committed mass suicide in our hostel. When all students were preparing for the examination, I spent my time coordinating the dead bodies, calling their respective parents and after everything was over—I envisioned setting up a counseling center in our college, and even visualized having a mental health center which would use spirituality, modern medicine and alternative medicines to cure and prevent mental health disorders.

I became a loner, not interested in what my peers activity or thought process. My parents were worried as I was determined to be a catalyst in bringing positive change in India and the world. I still remember my father preaching me "Don't try to be extraordinary", be a average guy, get a good job, a family and a peaceful life. However, I was never in peace with myself as the chaos, corruption, injustice around me in my home country was bothering me. Still I didn't have any freedom to do what I really wanted to do. So I thought of leaving India, my dearest homeland.