Bengaluru
My regular commentators spoke of V-Day post, FC 236, thus:
Lakshmi Raman: “Love in all its avatars and kinds makes the world go round. All the world may not love a lover (contrary to the popular saying), but they do look kindly on one.”
Tarun Kunzru: It's nice to pick a day to express love with more than usual gusto. While some people think it's alien to our culture, for me, it's nice to be expressive about positive things. Nothing is more valuable than love and caring!”
Krupa Murthy: “Your description of V-day is soothing and sensible! Love is the ultimate feeling that creates a bond that is unimaginable, and inconceivable and is a foundation that is inevitable and indispensable. It is the be-all and end-all for nature and nurture.”
🔮 Why Blame It on Fate?
Not a day has passed without my reading at least one, if not more, report of accidental death of two-wheeler riders or passengers in speeding cars. Young lives are lost to either bravado or youthful indiscretion leaving the parents devastated and cursing fate. Some survive only to stare at the prospect of being put behind bars or bring the roof down with their agonising screams stemming from debilitating injuries or both.
Some students perched precariously on a rock near a river lost balance while taking a selfie, fell into the rapids and drowned. Were they ill-fated to drown? Can one blame fate? Three boys think it is thrilling to take a selfie on the railway track with the oncoming train as a background. They are crushed. Thrill kills at times. Can fate be blamed? Instances of recklessness lead to loss of life.
Some resort to suicide. Psychologists give many reasons as to why people get depressed and become suicidal. They list out the related symptoms. If help lines are ignored and if people around such a person ignore the symptoms, fate is not the reason for the dismal outcome.
‘Fate’ comes from the Latin word Fatum meaning ‘that which has been spoken’. Therefore, through the ages, fate has come to be associated with that which has been predetermined for our lives. I find it difficult to accept this as a universal rule. True, someone takes a flight unbeknownst to its crash. The person had no part to play in his demise. So the narrative will either be, that he boarded that ill-fated flight or that he was fated to die in an air crash.
When I was working in Pune, back in the 70s, colleague A was to attend a bid-opening meeting in Mumbai and he was booked on the infamous Avro flight from Pune to Bombay, as it was then.
That colleague took ill and colleague B from the same department was asked to take that flight which crashed near the Yeoor hills (near Thane) as the flight had begun its descent into Santa Cruz. Sure, it was a double jeopardy. He was fated to take that ill-fated flight.
The story has a couple of twists. Colleague B travelled on Colleague A’s ticket as there was no time left and the flight was full, ruling out cancellation and reissue. Colleague A’s name appeared in the list of dead and all his relatives living outside Pune were shocked! As that pandemonium settled, the family of Colleague B were in for a horrible shock. The airline insurance declined to pay the usual death compensation to them as he was not a bona fide passenger. So, like the vetaal asked Vikram, do readers agree that Colleague B was ill-fated to take that ill-fated flight? Or do the readers feel that he was in control of the situation and could have opted to go by road to Mumbai rather than travel on someone else's ticket and not only become the proxy to someone else’s tragic end but give fate the cruel hand to deprive the family of the insurance payout?
Indiscretion, stupidity and carelessness are not components of fate. They are worthy of stand-alone castigation. I fell and broke my left wrist, which I wrote about in 🔗FC 224. I can’t say I was fated to sustain a fracture. It was out of a momentary and unmindful action on my part.
Most of us believe or find it convenient to believe that there is some superior power that controls our lives and that what has been preordained will visit us. We accept that as a fateful intervention refusing to consider the possible ways and the means which we had to avert. If, as a lawyer, I don’t try hard to help my client but blame his fate when the ruling is against him, my professional ethics and personal integrity become the casualty.
All of us struggle with the interface of free will and fate. We refuse to evaluate our ability to undertake and complete a task, allow our recklessness to be the influencer of our actions and then lay blame at the feet of fate. Like the father who, blindsided by his affection, gifts his son the only roof he had. Then he finds himself cursing fate, but not his son, when relationships dramatically deteriorate and he finds himself out on a limb at an elder care facility!
A fateful event is normally an occurrence that has a profound and irreversible impact. We hardly come across fateful being associated with something good. Grammatically one could say ‘My friend made that fateful decision to start a business and he has not looked back’. The words ‘fateful’ and ‘ill-fated’ are considered portentous and bring with them a sense of foreboding. Interestingly though, an event is characterised as ‘fateful’ or ‘ill-fated’ only after the event.
Sometimes we substitute fate for bad luck. If I wrote a competitive exam and failed, I could tell myself that I was not fated to be a civil servant. I have known people who wanted to become a doctor but did not make the cut and chose to become engineers or lawyers who could be heard saying one of two things like ‘I was not fated to be a doctor’ or ‘I was fated to be a lawyer’. The burden of the song is on fate 😀.
Even concerning matters that have a scientific basis, fate becomes the crutch. You may have heard someone saying “We were not fated to have a child” even when there were medical reasons that came in the way. Likewise, one's own making could lead to an ill-fated situation. Like, overindulgence and skewed upbringing can make a son stray and soon be beyond redemption. Yet, the parents will feel that they were not fated to have a son who made them proud.
Fate is not something I can joke about. Each one of us is capable of finding the cause for something happening somewhere with our logical deductions rather than cursing fate. Fate lingers behind every action that we take and lays its icy fingers the moment the action turns reckless.
We are masters of our fate for so long as our actions are our own doing. We are fated when we are in situations that unravel our prejudice beyond our control and our efforts to mitigate it.
As I was about to conclude, I was shocked to hear that two warehouses in a Mumbai suburb, that were hired by my daughter’s friend, an art director, to store all her precious creations were gutted by fire, reducing everything to ashes. Is this not ill-fated? :(
Dear readers, I hope you liked reading this post. I won’t say you were fated to read it but shall hope that you read it, as always, with a sense of appreciation. Please share your views.
Until next week, be in control of yourself, your life and your actions. Ciao.
Alluding to fate is often a crutch or a solace, depending upon the situation but as you have pointed out, fate is often in one's own hands. Birth is fate, rest is in your hands.
Very pragmatic. Fate is conveniently used to cover up one’s reckless or foolish actions/behaviour which do not end well. But as you have written sometimes it is fated.