The Great Plan

 “Everything happens for a reason”

What?

That has to be mankind’s vain effort to make sense of everything that happens around them. To assign a reason for stuff that cant be explained otherwise or just an attempt at scaling down things so that they can be coped with.

Bad philosophy, bad thinking, poor advice. Combine them with a generous dose of ignorance. Thus, we come to the premise of “The Great Plan”.

And nothing can go wrong with it.

But IT HAS and IT WILL.

Nicholas Clairmont said this in Philosophy and Reason, ‘Things don’t happen for a reason. Things happen and a reason is assigned. Occurrence precedes reason. The universe isn’t working in anyone’s favor or against anyone. The vague concept of an interactive universe is silly and sophomoric’.

The amount of random stuff that happens every second is just random. But the human mind is fixated on ideas from an early day itself about how it was all meant to happen. One of the most ridiculous examples of this idea has some real shitty timing. Here is how it goes:

Someone is grieving from the sudden, early, tragic demise of a family member. The random empathizer approaches and them and proffers to say this much; “See, his/her time was up. She/he was called to another place”. But how? Why did that call come in the shape of a drunkard behind a car that ploughed into another human and dragged that body for another 20 meters? Why did that human had to suffer 3 months at the end of pipes that went in and out of that body? “Oh no! You can’t say that! It was all part of the “great plan!”

A family spends their entire life’s earnings on a house, and it goes down along with a land slide. As they sit hunched together and stare into the void, the resident philosopher appears and lays a wise hand on their shoulder; ‘Perhaps it was built on shaky ground. This is a test!’

The sheer chaotic nature of the world around but can be quite an intimidating prospect for the human mind. But to cope, we have to scale things down. There is no such thing as coincidence! There has to be a reason!

But yes; it is consoling, romantic, therapeutic and utterly butterly philosophic to say so. It helps us escape from saying something awkward or unintelligent. When we blame it on “The great plan”, we keep clear of any sort of responsibility and accountability. We are the hapless subjects in a game. A game we know nothing about.

The same goes for some nice stuff too. Meeting someone who you immediately grew fond of, winning a lottery after a job loss, or reclaiming something you lost after many years. We beam and proclaim with tears in our eyes that we knew that it would “one day find me again”.

But I must admit; it feels nice. Except when the shitty stuff happens.

MUAH...

 There are only two kinds of people in this world: the ones who can eat spaghetti and the ones who try.. 

At work, I am blessed with free lunch 4 days a week. There are a few colleagues who, however, feel that food in any form or quantity is a wasted effort on me. Regardless, I look forward to it. By around noon time, my stomach would have already spoken to me that it is time, sometimes audible enough for the co-worker sitting opposite to my desk. 

The days when there is spaghetti in the menu, I am nervous. And curious. I consider myself still a student of the art of consuming this culinary dilemma. From the days I have poked various parts of my face with a fork to successfully loading pasta into where it is supposed to go, I have barely grown, skill wise. At the hospitality institute where I spent 3 years, our F&B instructor had shown us how to hold a spoon and fork to tame pasta. Like a magician, I have watched him twirl the red coils of Spaghetti Bolognaise with a vertically held fork, into pliant, submissive strings of obedience. 

In my hands, they always turned into the hair of Medusa.

I thought inverting the fork would the trick but it got ahead of me. Or it stayed behind. I turned again, but it adjusted. Over and over we play this out like some ominous dance with destiny just before I give up.

While engaged in this act one day at work, I learned an important lesson. I wasn't alone. 
I saw A.N, the guy from HR who usually consumes double his body weight in food, doing things to pasta no one has ever seen. He had managed to trap one end of all the spaghetti in his plate in his mouth and was using his mouth like a wet vacuum cleaner to get the rest also inside. His eyes, though challenged by the food, had sworn allegiance to it by assuming the same napoltaine red. I turned away.

S.T, the shortest in the office but the biggest mouth west of the Arabian Gulf, was found using a technique from the Indian kitchen where a "thoran' or "poriyal" is made. He was systematically chopping the spaghetti into 3 mm long little pieces to scoop them later into his mouth. I thought of all the time, energy and technology that had gone into shaping them in some distant factory. For what? But then I remembered that he usually smears mango pickle on his beef steak. Look away, Dev. 

J.W, is an elderly lady who looks at the lunch buffet like a marooned pirate who sees rum after 900 days. Her consumption however doesn't match her gaze. Her plate would weigh approximately 150 grams, crockery included. She deals with Spaghetti in her own way. The old fashioned way. The way that existed before humans thought of un-soiled hands as a sign of civility. J.W had picked up a coiled mass of gluten, red sauce and melted cheese with her nimble fingers. With a pout that would shame Marilyn Munroe, she kissed and devoured the whole thing with a barely audible, inverted "muah". I couldn't look away.

There’s no plan there, no complicated art, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine cooked pasta swirling up into her mouth like a buttered dream. She had decided that she wouldn't go hungry, no matter how sophisticated was the technology that shaped the pasta into such tricky shapes.

From the corner of my eye, I saw S.T who had stopped half way through his pasta-annihilation, with his mouth half open, staring at J.W. I put down the fork and spoon, and scooped up some Spaghetti. It was time to "muah".

SEEING RED

 You..

Every time I see you, my heart skips a beat.

It wasn’t any different this evening too.

I was one among the many who formed a winding river of red taillights looking east. An unusually long wait for drivers who seem to spawn from each other forms an unending supply of traffic as if in a video game you can’t play to win. The familiar patch of gravel spun under the tires as I pulled into the main street. It wasn’t easy when you had to manage a call on one hand and a stubborn steering in another, compounded by the fact that your right elbow is only 25 % useful, thanks to a misadventure.

Finally, I emerge victorious onto the road….and there you are.

Those are the moments that take you back to a similar day from years ago.

Days when you wondered if you stepped out on the wrong foot. Were you in a hurry to meet someone or was it purely out of habit? How important was the call you just made? Did that text message make you smile? Was it a movie date or just a cup of tea with someone special? Were you heading out for some banter and beer pong? Was it all unplanned?

Do you remember what you wore that evening? Were there coffee stains on your sleeve? Did you share a cigarette, or split a samosa into two unequal halves?

You decided to go Dutch, paid for everyone and till date no one remembers a damn thing? Have you given your share for a rather expensive birthday gift?

Do you still owe a few dirham to the tea shop chettan who never forgets to serve paper tissues with his samovar chai?

Is there an unfinished text message waiting for you on Instagram?

All these thoughts in an instant.

That’s what happens when I see you through my windscreen. In a flash. And I slam on the brakes.

Hey red light, that’s what happens when I see you while I am on the phone.

Note: I am not in a relationship with red lights. But we meet very often.