The Future Told

There are many things in this world that bemuse me, but the wackiest of all would be beliefs that are evidently surreal but still so widely acknowledged. Let me elaborate.

A friend gifted me a little, green Singaporean tortoise a few years back, claiming that, according to the Feng Shui faith, it would bring me good luck. The tortoise made a good pet for a few months before it died and I realized it wasn’t a tortoise in the first place, but a turtle that was to be kept in water all day. My luck didn’t change a teensy bit all those months, but the turtle’s luck was pretty ugly, I must say.

Then there was the woman I met in train, on a trip to Pune, five years ago. A conversation struck between us, after I saw her reading a book titled ‘The Art of Reading Hand Writing’. “Interesting” I thought, as I gave her a sample of my handwriting (it was all jagged with the train moving fast) and what followed was a detailed description of things that would happen to me in the next three days. I’m not ruling out the possibility that telling one’s future by studying their hand writing may be likely, but it’s just that those ‘next three days’ haven’t come yet!

A friend, a good student, visited a tarot card reader who told him that he would fail his forth coming exams and he definitely failed with negligible marks. He admitted that he didn’t bother to study at all, knowing he was going to fail anyways!

Yes, hilarious as it may sound, you will be surprised at how many civilized and educated people believe in palmistry, tarot card reading, astrology, Feng Shui and the likes. If my future is held in a pack of cards for real, it is in vain that I toil to any end, right? And if, a horse shoe on my door can tilt my fate even a slight bit, I bet there’d be no horse on earth with a horse shoe on and no house on earth without one on their door. And for crying out loud, if my fate depends on how my hand writing looks, then what about my country cousins who can’t write to save their skins? I thought how many children I would have would solely depend on my husband and our effective family planning; not on a few abstract lines on my palm. Astronomy, I admire but, astrology? Can the stars influence any decision I make any more than a rock by the road?

So, Father Fallacy and Mother Myth give me a break and let me decide my future. There may be many out there who will buy your little fibs and stories, but for me, I need more convincing. My future is in God’s hand first and then, in mine.