Skip to main content

The Soothsayer

Apoorva understood he had great intuition powers right in his childhood. Was it extra sensory perception or premonition or was he an old soothsayer reborn?
He grew up as a precocious child, loved by all. His predictions would be more often than not accurate and slowly the neighbours also came to know of his prophesies hitting the target. The neighbours would ask him about their exam results and all sundry matters. He enjoyed all the attention that he got and sometimes he felt he had something extra in him. As he grew up, his miraculous powers were put to lesser use. Family members didn’t consult him anymore and he also forgot that he had any of those fabled capacities. Once it so happened in his late teens, Apoorva and his friends had an altercation with an autorickshaw for a paltry sum. But those were the days when even the small got magnified. In the anger of being cheated, he cursed that the driver would receive his due. Muttering choicest expletives he was walking down to road in the opposite direction of where the rickshaw proceeded, and suddenly he looked back by an intuition. He was awestruck to see the vehicle turning turtle. It disturbed him. He cursed himself for cursing the poor fellow. His life was interspersed with some more incidents which reinforced his forgotten belief that he was special.
After his teen years, again, his prophetic aspect took a back seat. He was once again the normal person leading a busy life. Going through the paces as time progressed. Such was his hectic life that years passed by like days and days looked like weeks when he got immersed with his trade. The more efforts he put in, the more he got rewarded. He enjoyed the intoxicating growth. He was working on a career-defining project. As the project was nearing completion, in a casual post-lunch stroll with his colleagues, he said he wished he would get a break of some weeks. Completion of the project was around the corner and it was draining him mentally, physically and emotionally. As the discussion progressed, he designed the specifications for his wish. He wanted himself to be out of business for about 6-8 weeks, he was allowed to break a bone and could risk an injury which would not cause any permanent disability. Within a week, his custom-designed wish for a break materialized exactly in the manner that he had wished for. It was a life endangering accident but he escaped with just a bone dislocation and a sabbatical of 5 weeks. He wasn’t the naïve child or youngster anymore to leave all of this to extra sensory perception. He understood a law of nature in a harsh way that we all know but tend to either forget or ignore. Spoken words or thoughts have an in-built supernatural power .
As he learnt the lesson in the hardest possible way, he also learnt to leverage this faculty, a power that is available to all human beings but which he earlier construed as a specific endowment for him from the Almighty. He started to use it to his benefit now. Asking for specific favours and then being granted by the generous Master when appropriate time came. He revelled in the new-found magic. In receiving the blessings, Apoorva foolishly started believing that grace can be encashed as and when required and he had got the “key” to do get whatever he wants. Slowly, to his dismay, this also waned. Again?? he looked upwards.
His lessons in life were not complete, yet! Wisdom dawned upon him that all of this is a cyclic process and whatever goes up has to come down and whatever has come down will eventually go up till the time the cycle of life plays on. Just like the cyclic processes of day/night, seasons in a year. With the knowledge acquired over time, he learnt to wish only “good” things for himself and others around him. He learnt the knack of staying away from anything that has a remotely negative connotation. As a result, encouragingly, he could see the positive impact it had on people around him. He has also learnt to stay grounded when things are going his way knowing fully well that this too will pass sooner or later and when things don’t go as per his desires, he knows he needs to wait with equanimity for the cycle to come up again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Power of Belief

“Keys for room number 209, please”, I asked the lady at the reception at Hotel Fidalgo in Panjim. I looked at the clocks at the reception which were displaying the time of all the major cities of the globe. Suddenly my searching eyes could locate the local time which said 7:55 for Mumbai. At the same time my colleague Mr. Kulkarni was also asking for his keys. The lady could find neither of the keys. Mr. Kulkarni excused himself for some time giving the lady some time to get it, he moved on. I was waiting for the keys, my limbs aching. To add to it the day’s work had left my upper back in excruciating pain that I go through almost every evening for the past decade in my life. But today it was hurting really bad. The onset of a viral infection could not have come at a worse time and I was feeling being eaten up by it. I could sense the ascending temperature in my body. Feeling weak, I mumbled to the lady “Is it going to take long for the keys?” to which she replied “I’m getting it” a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lessons from a Catapult

One of the most fascinating “machines” that we used to play with as a child was a catapult or the slingshot. This simple machine done with the help of a “Y” shaped branch and a strip of the tube from bicycles used to be a prized possession of children of yore. These were efficient tools to launch missiles (usually small stones or glass / stone marbles) and were used by me and my friends in the lazy summer afternoons to get mangoes from the trees that had branches hanging out from their fences onto the roads in our neighborhood orchards. Young minds derived thrill from the speed and accuracy with which the missiles could hit the target which was a more efficient and easy way in comparison to hurling the stones by hand. This nostalgic trip was a by-product of my rumination on a topic that has become a buzzword from the anxious parents to boardrooms to political leaders, from studies to businesses to countries – SUCCESS. This word exhilarates, the feeling intoxicates. Deemed elusive...
3 comments
Read more

The Process

There are times when we know what is right but end up not doing what we know is right. It is a test of one’s character to come out better of the inertia within us. This piece deals with my story which not only fits into the topic of physical fitness but is a lesson into all other spheres of life. It was about 7-8 years ago that I started taking interest in walking. I would be very sincere for a couple of weeks and then would give in to the pleasure of having an extended hour’s sleep. This went on for quite some time and there would spurts of activity followed by a lull, which would invariably be much longer than the periods of activity. Some motivation would be derived from a positive message from someone / somewhere (those were pre-WhatsApp days and hence, the paucity of motivational messages! Nowadays we live in abundance of positive thoughts that come along as freely as the gentle warm rays of the Sun that accompany the sunrise!). Many times, a health scare of a colleague, a re...
Post a Comment
Read more