The reason why

Nothing happens accidentally. Not the storm, not the calm. Neither the problem, nor the solution. There is a cosmic reason why things happen as they do. And the more you submit yourself to letting life take its own course, the more you will find peace and joy in your life.

This is what grandfather would say so often that if I close my eyes I can hear his voice and see the expression in his eyes as he said it for the 100th time. Oddly though, he died on the road in a completely futile hit-and-run accident. I’m still trying to figure why grandfather was standing in the middle of the road at the precise moment the drunk lost control of his car. If there was a cosmic reason for why it happened, it went with him to his funeral pyre and will forever remain a mystery to me.

And yet I hear myself saying the same when things don’t work out for me quite as I’d expect  them to. Like the other day when Mr. Sharma, my teacher, asked us to raise our hands if we knew the answer to the sum he had written on the board. Well I didn’t know the answer, so I didn’t raise my hand, but he must have thought I did, because he called out my name. I stood up and said, “sir, I did not put my hand up.” For some reason that did not go down well with him. His eyes narrowed and he said: “you don’t know the answer?”. I shook my head to indicate that I did indeed not know the answer. If I had known it I would have raised my hand like he had asked. Then he said, quite inexplicably, in a loud and clear voice, “leave my class - go stand in the corridor”. I was astonished! Did he really mean it? Was it a trick like the raising of the hand? Was I supposed to sit back in my seat?

As I was trying to figure it out, he came up to me, grabbed hold of my ear and began to pull. That hurt. It was so painful I rose, trying to keep my ear closest to his hand. My hand rose up of its own volition and grabbed his arm to stop him pulling. He wouldn’t let go and moved towards the door, taking my ear with him. I followed as close as I could, gripping his arm to reduce the pull on my ear. We reached the door and he released my ear. The relief was immense. “Out!” he said as one would to one’s dog, flicking my hand away from his wrist. Out I went, holding on to my throbbing ear and trying to stick it back to my head so that it would come back into place.

In the corridor, I stopped. Confused. What exactly was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to stay near my class door? Go somewhere? Where? My ear was still feeling painfully stretched and my head was whirling with thoughts that kept colliding into each other. What exactly was going on? Then my grandfather’s voice stepped into my head. “There is always a reason why something is happening,” said his voice. The tone was firm, insistent. He knew something I didn’t.

A cosmic reason. What could be the reason? Had I missed something there? Why was my teacher angry? Was he angry that I hadn’t put my hand up?  Was he angry that I did not know the answer and so did not put up my hand? Why did adults not tell you what was going on inside their head?    

Dear grandfather, I wish you could have stayed alive. I would have sat on your lap and listened to you telling me that one day I will discover the reason why I am standing outside my class, in this corridor, on a cold winter morning.  The fog outside is just like the fog in my head. I don’t know why you were on the road when the drunk driver lost control. And I don’t know why my teacher lost control.

Maybe, when I am as old as you were, I will know what you meant.