Life twists and turns in odd ways. The pitch is usually flat and the bat makes contact with the ball and there is an occasional boundary interspersed with a dot here and there. But more often than not, there are ugly curve balls and random speed spurts. How do you deal with these? Do you hold your breath before every throw and hope against hope that it flies straight? Do you cross your fingers and fervently appeal to the pitch-god to spare you this time? Or do you swing your bat at it with all your might, hoping-praying-wishing that you will connect? Of course, if you do not, there is that long lonely walk to the pavillion. And as you walk, you wonder whether you could have swung another way and would that have been your century.
I have played. I have missed. And as I walk back home I contemplate. What mistakes did I make? Can I change? Can I perfect my stroke for the next time around? But that is the deal. Life is full of choices. And you make these choices in the split second when the ball, dislodging itself from the bowler's grasp, makes its way to the stumps at breakneck speed. And as the ball approaches, you think of all the balls you have faced and make a choice. As the ball comes hurtling-shearing through the wind, spinning-hissing through the air, the choice is made, and the bat, as if it had a life of it own, takes control of your arm and weaves and heaves in a hook towards the far end of the field. The bat does not know whether the choice is right or wrong, good or bad... it only knows the choice as it rushes towards the ball.
Maybe it is only possible to make choices and destiny casts the die of right-wrong. Maybe the choice is the prelude to your destiny. It is the old chicken-egg run ... ah well.
