Destiny

Durgesh left his home in Gaur City around noon, settling into the familiar office cab. Mid-December had arrived, but winter still lingered on the threshold of North India. The windows were rolled up; there was no need for the air conditioner.

Johney, his cab driver, drove with practiced ease. After COVID, offices had relaxed the rigidity of full-time work-from-office schedules, and cost-cutting meant cabs were no longer permanently assigned. Durgesh, however, worked five days a week on-site and had requested the same cab for daily pickup and drop. Johney had been driving him for over a year now-long enough to understand his silences, his choice of music, and when conversation was welcome or unwelcome. He had learned the art of restraint. Today, soft classical songs from the 90s floated through the cabin.

Durgesh watched the road slide past-the shops, the pedestrians, the half-finished buildings. As they reached Parthla, the newly inaugurated (or perhaps not-so-new) bridge, the cab took a left toward the FNG Expressway. That was when he noticed a small boy, no older than six or seven, on the service lane-laughing, running, chasing a few hens that scattered in panic.

And just like that, time folded in on itself.

It was a bright winter day in December 1992-or perhaps January 1993.

Sanjay had come to meet Banwari Lal Gupta, fondly known as Gora Gupta, to finalize a deal. He was buying a small plot fifty-seven gaz to build his first home. Three years earlier, he had left his village in Bihar in search of work. Now, he lived in Sangam Vihar with his young family as a tenant, still chasing the fragile promise of stability.

His wife and children accompanied him that day. They sat on plastic chairs in the lawn outside the office, discussing payment terms and paperwork.

Their eldest child, barely six, wandered off to play.

He spotted a few hens pecking at the ground and ran toward them. The hens scattered, and he chased them further-small legs unaware of distance, of danger, of consequence. He followed them into bushes where, suddenly, they vanished.

Or so he thought.

A man approached him.

Tall-because all men are tall when you are six.

The man asked him where his parents were. Only then did the boy realize they were nowhere to be seen. The familiar world had disappeared without warning.

The man held his hand and asked him to come along.

The child followed-because what else could he do?

He didn’t know how long they walked. Minutes or hours meant nothing to him. Time, at that age, has no shape. All he knew was the fear-silent, heavy-and the tight grip around his hand. Then, far down the street, he saw something that made his heart thud violently against his ribs.

His mother.

She was crying.

He wanted to scream. But fear stopped him. A strange instinct took over-if he screamed now, the man might turn away. If he stayed quiet, perhaps he would get closer. Close enough.

A few more steps.

Seema saw her child.

She ran.

The man released his hand.

The boy ran too, straight into his mother’s arms. She broke down, sobbing as if she had found him after a lifetime. Moments later, his father appeared, breathless, eyes searching, face drained of colour.

The child didn’t understand the tears. He didn’t know why adults were shaking and weeping. He was too young to comprehend what had nearly happened.

It was only years later-when he learned to measure time in hours-that he understood.

He had been lost for more than three or four hours.

His father, Gora Gupta, and several others had been searching frantically. No one except his parents truly knew what he looked like. It was his first visit there. There were no mobile phones, no cameras, no photos tucked into wallets. People searched for a description: a fair-skinned boy, six years old, three feet tall, wearing a red sweater and one brown sandal, last seen chasing hens.

Finding him had been nothing short of discovering a lost treasure.

The cab moved forward.

Durgesh sat still, his chest tight.

What if he hadn’t been found?

What if the stranger had different intentions?

The world he lived in now was full of such stories. Children maimed and abandoned. Children forced to beg outside temples, beaten into obedience, broken long before they could understand why. He imagined missing limbs, missing teeth, a fractured mind. Or worse-an existence so unbearable that death would have been kinder.

The thought made his palms damp.

And then it struck him.

How casually we blame destiny.

We say we’re unlucky because we didn’t win a lottery. Because a trip didn’t happen. Because a plan failed. Because God didn’t favour us in some small disappointment. We curse fate for minor inconveniences while standing safely on outcomes we never earned.

That day-decades ago-destiny had made a quiet decision.

Today, a wife waited for him at home. A daughter climbed onto his shoulders, shouting, “My papa! My papa!” A nephew demanded a Lotto Pie. Parents messaged him if he was late by even a few minutes. A younger brother shared an unspoken bond. All of them lived together, under one roof, within one life.

A life that could have ended-or twisted beyond recognition-before it even began.

Durgesh looked out of the window again.

The hens and the child were gone, or he had a travelled few more kilometres.

Destiny, he realized, does not announce itself with thunder.

Sometimes, it simply lets you come home.