What’s Next?
The Crystal Ball, artwork by John William Waterhouse
It was a warm, shiny morning. The curtains and the window slides were all pretty coquettish with one acquaintance, the sunlight. I opened the new coffee bottle and the smell was musing around the dining table. My mother’s phone shouted with long tone and vibration. The call was quite a surprise. I saw my mother nodding for sometime but then she told her friend to be patient with her newly-found wildest passion. Then she was smiling. I couldn’t understand everything from that one sided, grinning-conversation but could guess that something ‘futuristic-analysis-kind-of-discussion’ was taking up the pace. After around 15 minutes, my mother gave me a strict eye-gesture to talk to my mother’s friend. I said, “Hello aunty... how’s everything...”
She laughed a lot and said, “Listen, my prediction says that something is going to be changed in your life...”
She paused and continued, “Because I am getting too much 5s in your reading. Be prepared... and also tell me what you would pick among numbers 1, 2, and 3. Each one has crystals; first one clear quartz; second tiger eye, and third amethyst... Fast..fast.”
My face would have looked like a baking oven. I thought, “When did she get into these prediction games? And how will I choose when I don’t know anything about those crystals?” I was startled when her voice gave jumping excitement, and she said, “Tell me...Use your intuition.”
“Well, 1...”I said that, but I don’t know if I had used my intuition or not. But in the next couple of minutes, she gave me hundreds of different ideas on how to deal with new changes. She even told me to wear an evil eye bracelet because she felt I could expect evil forces near me! She had a few more suggestions, but then she again laughed and probably forgot her own sets.
The timeline for the changes was pretty daunting. If I started noticing all those signs and numerological alignments, I would probably stand still to expect the next possible changes or I would have another option to ignore everything. But will it work any way? I always want to stay in a place where I respect all the belief-systems, even if each one of them does not align with my way of thinking. I do not hold the dynamics of an atheist. I believe in the power of positivity if only I could translate that positivity into my own actions. Let’s say, my aunt’s prediction comes true. But my acceptance and my actions towards my fortune completely rely on me. Here, my actions again come first, even if I start believing her predictions. Prophecy can’t work alone.
We all love to see what’s next. We love to know what the future has for us. We all have that hidden desire to find a Doraemon and to get a seat on the time-machine carpet. We would all agree that it would be amazing, even if we could just see the next day. But there’s a great catch. We are all watching that. Each day, when you or I take a simple step ahead, glossy parts of the future speed up. Day after day, knowingly or unknowingly, we are passing some parts of the ideal puzzle to our future selves. It goes on and on. Here ‘prophecy’ is not alone. It’s getting a great tap of action. I call that action Ina*.
Imagine, if we all had a crystal ball, what would you see over there? Perhaps it will be the same person in it who just picked up the ball.
(*In Sanskrit, Ina (इन).—a. means determined or anything that is powerful.)