Skip to main content

Destiny


Whatever happens to me and is beyond my control is my destiny.  Natural calamities like earthquakes are beyond my control.  If I happen to be in a place where the terrorists have planted a bomb, that’s my destiny.  Accidents, diseases or other chance occurrences can alter my destiny in ways I could not have foreseen.  The stars that shine in the firmament above me are as much part of my destiny as is the darkness that descends ineluctably into the nooks and crannies along the way.    

What I am is my destiny.  What I am is not entirely beyond my control, I know.  Except my genes and hormones.  Except the environment that brought me up and certain impacts of that upbringing.  “I am the sum total of everything that went before me...,” as Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Child says, “of everything done-to-me.”  I am a product of the history that went before me as much as the one that is unfolding around me.  The martyrdom of two Prime Ministers of my country is part of my destiny as much the stratagems of the reigning one.  A lot of people came and went, and still come and go, leaving their marks on my destiny. 

I try to produce art out of the marks.  Scars refuse to change shapes.  Scars are beyond my control.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t be scars.

There is an invisible pied piper playing his tune to which the cosmos dances.  The planets move round prospective black holes.  Meteors collide.  Even the microscopic bacteria sway to that music.

In spite of all, in spite of all, there’s much that’s within my control. 
I choose certain steps of my existential dance.  However, inelegant they may turn out to be.  I have some choice, after all. 
In spite of the inelegance.

Many times, when the steps are inelegant I find my way.  My way. Such discoveries are not miraculous epiphanies.  Those are the ways in which I create myself.  Ways in which I alter my destiny.   

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 16, 2015 at 8:14 PM

    Beautifully written. :)

    When you write so wonderfully even that is not completely because of your destiny. It is made possible by some tiny-big carefully chosen steps and the decision to learn and work hard.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 7:09 AM

      Of course, Namrata, quite a few things are under our control - apparently, at least.

      Delete
  2. Ashwin KumarFebruary 16, 2015 at 9:11 PM

    Impressive writing :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 7:11 AM

      Thank you. One usefulness of unpleasantness is the poetry it can produce. :)

      Delete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 16, 2015 at 9:43 PM

    You have a good choice of words here...I can alter my own destiny; likewise, I can have an impact on somebody else's...but then that could be a part of their destiny already. So, i think it is difficult to put everything in black and white.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anand MaraladFebruary 16, 2015 at 9:54 PM

    Nice post.

    Yes, one's life can not be a mathematical model but the efforts to make it one provides a living to astrologers and the likes.

    We are product of the times and we influence outcomes of future too. Continuation from Rushdie's novel says '"I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come".

    That is because we altered our destinies!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 7:14 AM

      And those of others too. If we realise the full import of that probably we would be less insensitive.

      Delete
  5. wingsFebruary 16, 2015 at 10:45 PM

    Very thoughtful blog which would pass my mind several times since my teenage, but would lack so beautiful an expression like this. I still feel that even that could be the thing which is with in my control. I'd soon find an expression. I'm on the way. I'm the maker of my own destiny. In my own way... My Way. Thanks for reminding me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 7:17 AM

      It's a relentless struggle, I guess, between my way and that piper's music. The struggle makes life worthwhile, perhaps.

      Delete
  6. Ravish ManiFebruary 17, 2015 at 11:46 AM

    As I see, it is just a matter of individual's perspective. I too wrote a post on "Free Will or Fatalism" here: http://successfulbeing.blogspot.in/2013/09/free-will-or-fatalism.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 12:02 PM

      I read your blog on the topic. You have tried to be philosophical. Mine is more of a poetic attempt to look at the topic.

      Delete
  7. Dipanwita ChakrabortyFebruary 17, 2015 at 12:55 PM

    Thoughtful indeed. It makes one sit and think over our choices too since what we do may change someone else's destiny. Loved the entire read. Good day!

    I also love what Mr. Amitabh Bachchan once mentioned in his blogs..."Fate is funny. It overshadows us in all departs". These lines are from Mr. Bachchan. Source- http://srbachchan.tumblr.com/post/101016434946

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 12:59 PM

      Thanks for sharing Mr Bachchan's view. There's no escape from fate, I suppose. Einstein was of that opinion. For him, however, fate meant the unbreakable laws that govern everything from the grass to the stars.

      Delete
  8. UnknownFebruary 17, 2015 at 2:47 PM

    That was an amazing piece of writing. The language and choice of words powerful and apt! superb! I would have a very similar perspective on Destiny!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 17, 2015 at 6:41 PM

      Life takes to some crossroads occasionally and forces us to stare ahead ... and poetry takes weird shapes. That's what happened here.

      Delete
  9. Lancelot QuadrasFebruary 18, 2015 at 10:04 AM

    I began my morning reading posts, and i'm glad i came across your's.
    Maybe that was my destiny.
    Liked your view.
    There are just a few things we have a control on.
    We often give extra attention to things which are beyond our control.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 18, 2015 at 10:27 AM

      If we stopped doing that (giving extra attention to those which are beyond our control) and started taking charge of things within control, life would be quite easy an affair :)

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
9 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more