The Boy Who Already Believed...

 I am Ayaan, and not every story finds you when you're ready for it.

Some days arrive differently. Life gets full — work, family, the beautiful chaos of people you love showing up unannounced. And in the middle of all of it, something unexpected finds you anyway.

That's exactly how I met him.

A young man at a tea stall. Around twenty-five. Cricket gear stuffed into a bag that had clearly seen many matches. Cheeks still flushed from the game. There was something about him — an energy you don't often see in people who've started adulting.

We started talking. And within minutes, I realized this wasn't casual conversation.

He didn't just love cricket. He lived it.

As he spoke, his eyes lit up in a way that was impossible to ignore.

"I dream that Mahendra Singh Dhoni calls me to bowl," he said.

And then, without missing a beat.

"And Virat Kohli gives me his shoes… because mine are torn."

He wasn't joking. He wasn't just imagining for fun.

He was already there. Completely inside that dream. As real to him as the tea in his hand.

I just listened.

Because some dreams don't need advice. They need space.

There was no doubt in his voice. No backup plan. No hesitation. Just that rare, unguarded belief, the kind that doesn't stop to ask whether something is possible before deciding to want it.

And sitting across from him, something quietly hit me.

I was twenty-five once. I had that same fire. That same certainty that the world would make room for what I loved. Somewhere between then and forty, I had learned — like most of us do, to calculate before we dream. To be practical. To be realistic.

He hadn't learned that yet.

And honestly? I hope he never does.

Because as we grow older, we get better at knowing what's possible. But somewhere in that process, we slowly forget how to want things with our whole chest… without conditions, without backup plans, without asking first whether it makes sense.

That boy at the tea stall? He wasn't behind.

He was ahead. He reminded me that the best things I've ever done in life weren't carefully planned. They were simply believed in — first, fully and without apology.

Everything, one day at a time.

 

— Ayaan | And I am still learning, one dream at a time. 🏏

 

At 25 you believe before you think. At 40 you think before you believe. Maybe the trick is to find your way back.