Bound by Fate | [✓]

1. Fates Play

(Age 18)

"We don't meet people by accident. They are meant to cross our paths for a reason."

Maa says while looking at me, Ami and Aaru. We just look at her. Giggling at how Papa and Maa act when they are together. They were like star crossed lovers. A hopeless romantic and a kind man of her dreams.

She calls it fate.

When we were younger she would walk into our shared room and cuddle all three of us in her arms. And tell us stories of the "Red string of Fate."
A Chinese tale she adored and recited in varied versions every night. Being an author comes with all kinds of delusional and heart warming stories instantly. Every night she told us a different story. None repeated. But they were all on the same theme Fate.

I only remember one.

Walking home one night, a young boy saw an old man (Yue Lao) standing beneath the moonlight. The man explains to the boy that he is attached to his destined wife by a red thread. Yue Lao shows the boy the young girl who is destined to be his wife. Being young and having no interest in having a wife, the young boy picks up a rock and throws it at the girl, running away. Many years later, when the boy has grown into a young man, his parents arrange a wedding for him. On the night of his wedding, his wife waits for him in their bedroom, with the traditional veil covering her face. Raising it, the man is delighted to find that his wife is one of the great beauties of his village. However, she wears an adornment on her eyebrow. He asks her why she wears it and she responds that when she was a young girl, a boy threw a rock at her that struck her, leaving a scar on her eyebrow. She self-consciously wears the adornment to cover it up. The woman is, in fact, the same young girl connected to the man by the red thread shown to him by Yue Lao back in his childhood, showing that they were connected by the red thread of fate.

She called it 'Yuanfen'.

She said it meant 'the Binding force between two people in a relationship. It was a relationship by Fate or Destiny.'

It sounded so far-fetched.

Unrealistic and Like a fairytale.

I don't believe in Fate. But everytime I see my parents together I do like to think that they might be an exception.

Anything involving fate can be nothing but painful and cursed.

Maa clutches on papa's arm and nuzzles her face into his chest.

Papa just lets out a small gentle laugh while patting maa's head.

We are pulled from our thoughts and reverie with the distant sound of the ululdhavini in the distance.

It was Vijaya Dashami today.

Durga Pooja was the time of the year I enjoyed the most since I was a child.

In many customs and cultures devotees don't eat or drink anything. They fast. To show their devotion. But we Bengalis did it completely differently. We feast. We danced, enjoyed and worshipped.

Today was the last day. The tenth day. Sindhoor Khel. It was fun to watch all the married women play with vermillion from the sculpture-idols and also smear each other with it.

The ritual signifies the wishing of a blissful marital life for married women.

"Anu, I am leaving. I can't wait for this. Chandini is also waiting downstairs."

"Amaar Priyo, why are you always in such a hurry? What about the veil for Durga Maa?"

Maa shrugged her head casually as she stood up. Her pearly white saree made her look more radiant than dull. The sparkle of mischief in her eyes told me that it was time for something we all were not going to like.