Reminisce.. The Boy with a dream...

It was a full moon. The evening was beautiful with the ocean out-front glittering like a sea of diamonds, extraordinarily beautiful than the usual night. Full moon always gives the sea a touch of awesome and majestic. Allure by the call of the sea, he walk to the beach in front of his house and sat on the wooden bench. Alone, this time he was alone looking at the sea in front of him. It has been the scene of his village, a small community beside the sea, fronting the Arabian Ocean. He was just eleven years old and all that he could remember was the time he had played with his friends from the village, mostly boys of his age. The village is his home, the home of his father and his father's father before him. They all had live in this same village all the years.

He watches the seafaring vessels come and go at the small port nearby. Sometime out of curiosity he would walk to the port to look closer at those ships that come and go. It does fascinate him and wonder where these big ships would go from here. He had heard from his friends that some of these ships would go to distance-land in the Far East. And that some of his friends who had boarded these ships had not returned; for they had found new means of having a better livelihood in the new land in the Far East.

His life in this small community of Malabar, a small fishing village just off the coastal area has always been the same. Some farm their land with coconut, plant paddy their staple food while others would do small business to complement their daily income. This after all is a small self-sustained economy, it has been like that for all the years and life have being going on without much changes. Sometime he wonder whether it would be better for him to leave home and venture to other part of India or some other countries to seek a better life. He had heard so much from those people that come and go whenever ships anchor at the local harbor. He has seen some of his friends who left and return has more money now than before and lives a better quality of life and some start to do business on their own.

Like all those other boys of his age he has no education and education has never been part of the family’s culture of his village folk. They had been farmers or fishermen all their lives and had been poor all along. Sending children to school cost money, they would rather have their children helping them in the farm than going to school. That is why not many of the children from this village go to school. It has been like this for all the generations before and it is now the same. He sometime wonder whether it would be better for him if he had a chance to go to school but his parents are poor and he is more useful in the paddy field then at school. So like all his other friends he had no opportunity to go to school and life continues the same. At time he wonder whether it would be wise for him at this age to leave his village and venture to other countries that he had heard so much; to search for a job and earn more money and eventually start a family of his own here in this village. It sound to be good and he continue to dream of leaving his village for a greater pasture.

To be continue. Have a nice day.