There's a park-like open space in front of Gurudayal College, on the banks of the Narsundar, where I often go for walks to shake off the icy melancholy. Walking, eating... it does me good. Today I was chatting with a friend... no, not there. Suddenly I felt like going to Suman T Stall for tea. Cravings of various kinds keep seizing me. Today was no different. I got into an auto and headed to the open space. The two of us had a bullet-tea and a milk-tea. It was just past ten at night. Craving satisfied, bill paid, we crossed the field and came to the front of the college. I called out to an uncle waiting on the other side of the road, ready to pick up passengers in his auto. I told my friend, "Come on, let me drop you off and I'll head home in this auto." My friend said, "No, no, my place is close by. Let me walk. I can catch an auto from there." I quickly shouted at the uncle, "Uncle, no need! You go. Don't come over here." I even waved him back, asking him not to cross the road. The elderly uncle didn't hear my words or my warning. He turned his vehicle around, came over to our side, and stopped beside us. I said to him then, "Uncle, don't mind, but I'd asked you not to come!" He said "All right!" and drove off. Usually, in such misunderstandings, I compensate a little. For some reason, I didn't today. After he left, profound regret gnawed at me constantly. My friend kept advising me not to overthink things. But what does the mind care for moral lessons! When we reached near my friend's place, I vaguely thought I saw that elderly uncle pass by us again with two passengers. When I mentioned this to my friend, he said, "Brother, he's still on your mind, that's why you're seeing things. It was someone else." After saying goodbye to my friend at the mouth of his lane, I signaled to an approaching auto to stop. To my amazement, it was that same uncle who pulled up in front of me. I asked, "Uncle, wasn't I just with you a few moments ago in front of Gurudayal?" Talking with the uncle about various stories of birth and death, I returned home—in his auto. Destiny, it seems, had written that I would return home in his vehicle. Even after turning him away, that's what happened. Destiny brought the uncle near my friend's place; not only that, the passengers he'd dropped off had gotten out at such a distance that the time needed for him to turn around and return to exactly this point was precisely what it took for him to catch my eye. They could have taken another route; they didn't. They could have gone farther; they didn't. The uncle's auto could have arrived a few seconds later; it didn't. I have rarely witnessed such strange convergences of time. Did God Himself feel the weight of my regret today? Or was it that in the uncle's destiny, my friend was never meant to be a passenger—but rather those two others and I were? When something is written in fate, does Time itself roll up its sleeves and step onto the field to make it happen? Getting out at home from the uncle's auto, it was as if a heavy stone of regret lifted from my chest. After paying him several times the usual fare, seeing the contentment bloom on his face, I realized that God had perhaps planned to draw us to the open space today, and through this nocturnal drama, had forgiven some of my wrongs. For the uncle's heart to be better than necessity demanded at the end, it first had to be worse than necessity demanded at the beginning of this entire timeframe. Who are we to venture beyond His grand masterplan!
I’ve encountered proof again: by the force of fate, fate turns its wheel.