Day 9 of the March SOLSC! #SOL2022

My brother and I with our grandfather

Yesterday I  had written about chance happenings in my grandfather’s life which proved to be turning points. He used to wonder what his life would have been like if those happenings had not happened. I think there are turning points in each person’s life. They may make or destroy our lives.

When Aravind was completing his under graduation he knew he wanted to study English Literature  and was thinking of joining the university in the next city. One day his professor told him that he should write the entrance exam for MA in the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (CIEFL) in  Hyderabad. Hyderabad was a familiar place for us. My father had been posted there years ago, my brother and family lived there but we had not known about CIEFL. Aravind wrote the All India Entrance exam and was selected. Later CIEFL became The English and Foreign languages University. He went on to study MA, MPhil and PhD there. His life would have been different if his professor had not told him about that institute 😊.

I remember more than thirty years ago my parents settled in a small town after my father retired from service. Putha and his wife Appi worked for them. After some years Putha passed away. Appi continued coming and her younger son came along with her. Narayana was a year older than Aravind. My father started teaching him arithmetic and other subjects. Narayana continued his education with my father’s help. He joined a diploma course in engineering in a nearby college. It was a three year course but he took more time. But he was interested in his studies and my father taught him every day. He passed, got a job and did well. Appi continued working with my mother till my father passed away in 2016. Narayana always came to see my parents when he came home. Even now he calls my mother once a month. He got married and has a daughter. He sends her photos to me, and I show it to my mother. As a small boy if he had not started coming to my parents’ home, life would have been very different for him. He was the first person in his family to study beyond primary school.

When I sit back and think about chance happenings, I feel there is some Power with a purpose behind everything that happens. Maybe it is easier to think so, because there are no answers for many questions in life. 😊