A CONVERSATION WITH MY DESTINY

A CONVERSATION WITH MY DESTINY

It happened today. Destiny always has the last laugh. He looked at me, my destiny, triumphant as ever as if to say “I told you so and you never listened, see ultimately what has to happen will happen.” This was a very trivial matter and even then he would never let me have my say. You see today as I was having my dinner, I bit on something hard. I told my wife “I think I bit a stone”. She looked at me quizzically and then said “its ok as long as it isn’ a rock.” It was only when I went to wash my mouth I found a gaping hole where once the tooth existed. There was nothing there. When I told my wife she asked me “but where is it, did you spit it out or?” as she tapered off I was gripped with fear. Did I spit it out or swallow it? I searched my plate and did not find anything so I decided that I must have swallowed it. But I was sure I did not swallow it for nothing hard had gone down my gullet. I remembered that way back in my childhood someone told me that if I swallowed the seed of a fruit then it will germinate in my stomach and grow into a tree and come out with the fruits all hanging out of my mouth. I was too young then and the only picture that stood before me at that time was that of oranges popping out of my mouth for I had just eaten an orange and swallowed the seeds. So where was my tooth? The mystery remains, I only hope that it does not pop out of my mouth making me buck teethed. I had been planning to see a dentist, for that particular tooth was troubling me, but I kept on postponing it, for a visit to a dentist is not a very pleasant one.

As I was still pondering over where my tooth had gone, my destiny spoke “you were destined to lose that tooth, for if it had been otherwise you would have visited the dentist, had a root canal done and had a ceramic cap (I am sure you would have gone for the costlier option for I know that’s what you would have done) and shelled out a few thousand rupees, all for a tooth that had come to the end of his days. You see I do not spare anyone for what’s to happen will happen. But I do not understand why you should be so upset, I have saved you the amount that you would have paid your dentist and to top it all, from the agony of having to undergo the drill of the dentist. For all this you only have to make certain adjustments to the way you live your life. You need not show all your teeth (of course now you cannot do that) whenever you meet a female on the road, you can just smile and you never know you may even be charming. Try to look at the positives, why do you brood? You will have lesser number of teeth to brush thus enabling you to save on time, paste and money. You will not have food particles sticking in the crevices for which you would have used a tooth pick every time you have a meal. Instead of looking at all the positives which I have listed out you still go on brooding over your lost teeth. I know your brooding will last for sometime, for every time you twirl your tongue and find emptiness within, you will feel sad, but I know in course of time you will get used to it and the absence of the tooth will no longer bother you.”

He continued “you see that though I lay down the rules I have also given you the freedom to adjust to some of my machinations as you may call it, so you cannot always blame me for the mishaps that occur to you. If you do not use it you are to blame”.

When he said mishap, I was reminded of what happened when I was in   Mumbai some years ago. I went in to the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror and ran the beard trimmer, adjusted to the deepest cut as I wanted to sport a week old beard. Like I have already told you that trimming a beard is a great destresser and since I was feeling listless I thought that I would run it through my head also since I planned to have a haircut of whatever hair was there and of course I had more than what is there now. But disaster struck for I had forgotten to readjust the depth of cut in the trimmer and lo! I ended up with a weeks growth of hair on my head. I might as well gone to Tirupathi and shaved of the entire hair in which case I may have earned some brownie points with the Lord. Well may be it was destined to happen this way. I can see Destiny smiling, seeing me recall this incident. But a bigger suspense awaited me, when I paraded myself in front of my wife waiting for a response from her to my new look. She was too busy in the kitchen and did not notice it initially and I thought that it was not so bad after all. Suddenly she looked up, appraised and understood what had happened, she only said “what’s wrong with you, what have you done to yourself?” what was to happen had happened and that is when I used the freedom which Destiny was speaking about. I said “this is the new look”. You see that what had been a mishap years ago has now become the done thing. Don’t you agree?