It is so perfect when I imagine myself in a tailor made Versace, Santoni shoes, impeccable tie and a Glashutte original watch. With a coffee mug on the table and a tablet pc in my hand, I wave down the general manager’s suggestion on the existing problem for the brand. It is so perfect to imagine myself with the power to decide what Coca Cola’s next product launch would be in India’s domestic market, at what price and targeted at what segment of the consumers. Yes, it will be perfect when I will decide what new venture to launch and the whole brand would run according to my wishes. Well, that’s the dream for me, and I know many others have theirs with various variations.

People like me, dream day and night, we possess the famous ShekhChilli syndrome. We are day dreamers. We dream and we love it, sometimes about our job, sometimes about our other to be developed qualities/traits. We even plan our whole life accordingly, but with one deviation our castle of wind falls in no time. It takes some time to make one again but we do build it and don’t care about the past. We give out best or that what we think is our best and dream again until the results come out.

This winter has shattered my castles multiple times. IIFT crushed the mighty walls, SIBM blasted the roof off and CAT recently took the remaining debris along with the tornado. But there was hope, that the dream will come true, I will collect the ET brand manager of the year award, CNN youngest achiever of the year award as XAT was yet to come out. Little did I know about the trebuchet, today the foundations of the castle were also destroyed, so savagely that not a single stone cottage can stand on that ground. Today I bid adieu to all tier one management colleges and welcome introspection and criticism.

Yet I am compelled to dream, dream a slightly different dream, build the same castle with different bricks and hope that this time it will work out. I have to get those awards, I want to decide the fate of products and I need that power to wave off any body’s stupid suggestion. After all, Tier two colleges are not that bad, are they? It will take more struggle, more fight and a lot more than just building castles in air.

One thing more, people like us, the shekhchilli syndrome sufferers, do not give up, do not care about the rest of the world. Peer pressure is there but who cares, they do not know how high we would be going, after all we will build a kingdom to rule. Day dreamers we are and we will be. No time to waste, time to work, time to do. “Dreams are not those which you see when you sleep, dreams are those which do not let you sleep.”