Power of Dreams
It is truly an honor and a privilege to be invited here today on the occasion of the graduation day of this most prestigious institution. My congratulations therefore to all of you graduates, and all my good wishes to you for the future. During the interactions with Mrs. Amani on the protocol of today's function, I noticed that, and also while she was giving her speech, that she always referred to the students as her children.
Which led me to think that the child is the dream of its parent, a dream that the parent lives. If you want to learn how to live your dream, just watch your parents. See how it works for them, for that's how it works for all of us.
With caring, with passion, with resolve, with commitment, and with determination. That's the easy part. The tough one comes later.
The tough part is when you and your dream cannot be distinguished. When you become the dream of not just your parents or yourself, but a point in the journey where you become the dream of a nation. When you become the dream of the choices you made, when your vision echoes in millions of resonating voices across the world from where there is no looking back, you are the dream.
Today, as you stand on this formative threshold from where you look forward to making those dreams come alive, your parents look upon you with prayers, your teachers look up to you with pride, and the nation looks up to you with hope. That is the strength, the power of a dream, and today it is yours. Grab it with all your courage and make it happen.
There can be times when it will be or feel impossible to perform. It may feel like a fairy tale. No one said that life is easy.
But never be shaken by its adversities. A dream, a vision is not an intangible, unreal, imaginary piece of fiction. A dream has hands, it has feet, it has a body.
Your hands, your feet, your body. The dream is you and you are the dream. May the two always remain united in spirit.
And if that means a struggle, if that means a fight to finish, so be it. It's not about winning or losing, it's about living a life.
If I had been a sportsman, a boxer, athlete, hockey player, cricketer, if I had joined the army, the navy, and the air force, if I had been anything else other than an actor, my parents would still have been happy because I was their dream, no matter what I myself was dreaming to be.
Gandhiji said, and the speaker here, the head boys talked about change, he said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." If I were to add my feelings to it, I'd say be the dream that you wish to see in the world. So live a dream.
A dream which is neither mine, nor yours, nor anyone else's. A dream which belongs only to itself. What you bring to the world are the blessings of your parents, learnings of your teachers, and your dreams.
They are precious. Do not trade them for anything in the world. Which brings us to a curious word that has become a part of some kind of jargon. It's a word called career.
I'm not quite sure I quite like this word, career. Career is literally a dash of speed, like a horse does on a racetrack, bolting at uncontrollable speed without an aim or an objective. Life is not a racecourse.
Life is an order, a discipline. Life is a focus. Life is a purpose.
A purpose achieved by virtues which are developed with personal effort. Do not gamble on life, it may not happen twice. A dream, therefore, is much more than a career.
The dreams of the parents and the dreams of the child live in one place, remember. That place is called home. Not yours, not mine, not his, not hers, no one person's.
A home is always ours, our home. Our dream is our worship. Our vision is our prayer.
This is the structure of dreams. This is the bond. This is also the bondage, a bond of love, the bondage of responsibility, be that of a small family or that of a large nation.
We are. We are because we dare to dream. We are because we learn to excel. You know, chances are very strong that I could have been in cinema or in any other creative aspect of life without a grounding in education.
Education which is in consonance with the belief that what sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul. We shouldn't aspire towards a graduation degree merely because of peer or parental pressure, and I say this with all due respect. We should aspire to become graduates because we feel the need to be complete with the advantage of formal education.
Remember always in life, whatever is good to know is difficult to learn. The education of the greatest value that I received in my school, which was Sherwood College up in the hills in Nainital, was how to be a human being. Of what we call in shorthand, character.
And I don't mean the ones that I play in my films. Admittedly, I had the benefit of inspirational parentage, but Sherwood taught me to live in dignity with my peers, live in a community, and live well with myself in the world at large in consequence. Living together, working together, learning together, fighting and loving each other, competing fairly in noble rivalry and cooperating supportively, I learned a sense of fellowship.
So well put in my school motto, which was in Latin, "Mereat quisque palmam." Let each one merit their own prize. Let each one merit their own prize.
I've always believed that one must harness the power of dignity through training. Training of the mind, the body, and the spirit. Another word for this training is called discipline.
I didn't always like to agree with the routine of boarding school and the rules, but afterwards, I can tell you I really appreciated the fact that had it not been for its initially imposed regimen, I could not have learned to harness the power of my own dignity for myself. The boxing ring in my school was a compulsory activity. Everybody in school had to enter the boxing ring and fight.
It's now probably a long abolished practice because of its barbaric practice. But to me, it was a great tutor in this regard. You will have any amount of support from outside the ropes, but inside, you're on your own.
Similarly, in life beyond, you may have a diehard corps of cheering fans and also perhaps those that jeer at you criticize you abuse you in contempt. But at the end of the day, you must engage life alone. The greatest prize in life is not the recognition of worldly success.
The prize that best crowns the human being is that of the possession of good character. It is a strenuous prize. It must be re-won.
It is also a certainty of mine that there is many a day where I shall fail that prize myself, not for want of trying, but it is the most worthy prize of all, and without it, suffered all material success and fame is sheer emptiness. To discover the value of one one's dignity is also to discover the value in the dignity of others, and through that, the dignity of a community.
The right to education is a fundamental right, a fundamental human right, a fundamental dignity. To pursue the aim of education for all is therefore a duty of states. But it is not just a duty for the state, it's a duty for every one of us to uphold fundamental human rights, not just our own, but for all.
Yet, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, here in India, basic literacy is still below the threshold level of seventy-five percent. Literacy, being able to read and write, is always more than the sum of its parts because of what it opens up for people. Literacy ends up being a kind of metaphor.
As soon as one can read and write, one becomes a member of a much larger community than would be otherwise possible. A community that also extends into the past and into the future. Literacy not only enriches our inner lives, it is also an indispensable means for effective social and economic participation, contributing to human development and poverty reduction.
Not being able to read is a human poverty. Not being able to read is an inhuman poverty Not being able to read deprives the human of the right to live in our collectivity. Not being able to read is a loss of freedom.
That a third of our population is deprived of this freedom deprives us all of our freedom. A good education is the most valuable thing that a human being can possess. It is our greatest wealth, individually and collectively.
In the world beyond these walls, fortunes will come and go, money will come and go, but a good education can never be taken away once it has been possessed. Academic achievement is not enough. The kind of knowledge gained through a good education is more than just the acquisition of information.
Knowledge is learning what to do with all that information. That is the role of good character. And learning what to do with knowledge is the path to wisdom.
Knowledge is most valuable when it is shared. To all my fellow students, and I call you fellow students because I am still one. To all my fellow students out there, may we take heed every day of our wealth.
Hunger for it. Strive for it. Nurture it. But above all, share in it. For then it manifolds multifoldedly.
We share it through reading, surfing, listening, talking, debating, exploring with each other about what is good and bad and what we do say and believe. May we all here today persevere according to our own individual invaluable and singular talents for a bright and better future. Myriad quisque palmam. Let each one merit his prize.
Dare to dream. Learn to excel. Thank you.
