The Hindu Business Line : A little dream

Lavish promotional campaigns for social service organisations always make you wonder: Couldn't some of that money have gone straight to the children instead?

Though WorldVision's `My India' raises this question, it is a book that reflects not only the hopes and aspirations of young people but also their will and conviction to see their dreams come true.

It is a compilation of pictures and poems by 30 young people expressing their aspirations for their India. The future they dream of, the ideal world they would like to live in, the desire for change.

Whether they want a pollution-free environment or schools and hospitals for all, these young people show the willingness to take a step forward, take responsibility and play a role in building a better India.

Simple houses and well-laid out villages are carefully coloured in, complete with details like a red rose growing next to a water pump, perfectly shaded doves fly out of the pages asking for world peace, large alphabet boards brighten up open-air schools, and the sun shines brightly out of all the pictures. This is the work of children whose dreams are simple but so very large.

Young people from across the country have contributed to this book and WorldVision has also included summaries of each of its projects in the areas in which the children live. The design and layout is beautiful and thoughtfully done, but the editing is rather shoddy with some basic language errors and lazy writing.

But the real spirit of this book lies in the fact that whether they want to be teachers, doctors or pilots, the young want to reach out, help people and make a difference.

Simple dreams like pavements on either side of the road and ambitious ones like fighting terrorism come together to show that we all want the same thing for our country, for our world, whether we're children or adults, rich or poor, from the cities or rural areas.

Water, healthcare, electricity, roads, education, a clean and safe environment — that's all they dream of. That's all most of us dream of. Is it so hard to achieve? Or as 11-year-old Ashish asks, "This is a little dream/ Will it be mine?"

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