Destiny is Inexplicable

The most intriguing expression I’ve ever come across in life is: this was destined to happen (ye toh hona hi tha). Being a lifelong non-believer having no faith in intangible phenomena like godhood, divinity, destiny, fate and all that, I never had any belief that an individual’s life could be preordained on certain counts, if not on all. But you keep learning as life unfolds itself. There’s no getting away from the fact that there’s something we call destiny or fate. Believing in destiny doesn’t make a person fatalist. But its direct or indirect influences on an individual’s life cannot be discounted either. In Latur’s earthquake in September 1993, five labourers somehow survived. They fled and came to Bombay. They were sleeping on the footpath when a truck ran over all, killing them on the spot. If they hoodwinked death in Latur, they couldn’t dodge it in Bombay. What should it be called and how will you account for it? Why do some people fail to get both the ends to meet despite working so hard throughout their lives, and why do some people never do anything worthwhile yet they live luxuriantly? You may call it premonition, gut feeling, hunch or by whatever name you like. Yet, there is an English couplet that says, ‘It’s fate that flings the dice and when it flings/ Of kings makes peasants and of peasants makes kings.’ Our efforts and endeavours can make a whale of a difference to our lives and future, but the subtle, nay insidious, role of destiny cannot be ruled out. Some unknown influences can never be fully gauged.

Source: Economic Times, 1/03/2019