As the universe conspires…

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

From The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

This is the story of a friend an acquaintance who had a dream. She/he (lets just call ‘him’ he for the time being… the sex is not important… it could be either a he or a she, him or a her, or anything in between)  had a very powerful passionate dream. He wanted to do something, to accomplish something. Something which a person of his socio-economic status could otherwise not hope for. But he still had that dream.

He dreamt about it, day and night. He told every single person, from every Thomachayan to Karthiyaniamma, Hari to Katey, Dasappan to Saynaparu… He dreamt and dreamt, and hoped and hoped, and worked and worked, to make that dream come true. He followed a certain path, and he knew that the path would take him where he wanted.

No one but Shakespeare understood the decider of future best, when he phrased ‘malignant fate’.

Malignant fate sat by and smiled. The path broke. The path denied him that dream. A few thorns had sprung up. And a few trees had fallen. And the path had broken. The path let him down. Inspite of the dreams, the commitment, the hope, the work…. Malignant fate.

For any other, the dream would have remained shattered. And it would have mocked you, like your dismayed image mocking yourself a hundred times from the hundred different pieces of a shattered mirror.

But no, for him, he had a dream. He didn’t give up. He knew there was no more merit in the path. He jumped on to another.

Now he isn’t a person you would want as your closest buddy. Not after you have seen and heard the worst of him. There are moments when I have felt intense shame, and sorrow, and moments when I felt I was shattered, all because of certain things that this particular person did/said to other people (it had nothing to do with me…). There are things which he had said and done, for which I had cursed him at several times. And despised him. My acquaintance friendship with him had then felt like some intense impurity on my body. Which I wanted to cut away. Like a leg sprain during a nurtured event. Or a throat pain while seeing ice cold lemonade on a hot sunny day.

Keeping all this in mind, you would think that poetic justice had played out at last. He was paying with his dream for all the stuff he had did.

But no sir! In a reversal of fates, in a turn story with events that Nostradamus would have failed to believe, his dream came true.

Perhaps not through the path he wished. His dream, which should ideally be a means to an end, has gone into his head and become an end in itself (can’t say for sure, for what is ideal for whom?). But still, he had that dream.

It is at moments like this that I look up to the sky, and smile, knowing that there’s somebody looking back. When I look at the bark of a tree, and know, feel, that when I want something in life, even that bark would help me with its heart and soul. When I recognise the energy, here, there, everywhere.

When you really want something in life, the entire universe conspires in helping you have it. Paths seem to appear. Things start to happen. Obstacles seem to melt away. Some obstacles stay – for you shouldn’t go that way; that road is under construction. The entire universe heaves and tries, with all its heart and soul, along with you, and probably, you will have your dream. If its universally possible. No matter what a person you are. You make mistakes. What matters is, can you correct them? Then the universe stands for you, with you.