Wish fulfillment is a tricky thing. Even for a god. You might not understand this but for a god there are a huge number of people he or she has to listen to. So even if he wants to fulfill wishes of people, it takes a very long time for everybody’s turn to come.
One might argue that god is omnipotent/omnipresent. But the truth is that god never said that he is all powerful. There are some gods who aren’t that powerful. So they have to go person to person to fulfill their wish. But this then results in a different problem.
Having said this not all people are delusional to expect all their wishes to be heard. Some people understand this and that is why they say, “All of us get at least one opportunity for our wish to get fulfilled. That’s why we should always keep on wishing the same thing over and over again. If you do that enough some day your wish will become a reality.”
Raghav knows this, which is why he repeats this one sentence all the time, “Make me a singer.”
Raghav Mulshi, a nice 28 years old guy. He supposedly has his life figured out. He lives in Vanchi city, has a decent paying job and is married to a beautiful woman. As a couple they own a nice bungalow in the suburbs. But this means that he has to drive a lot to and from work. All the while repeating the line, “Make me a singer.”
One night Raghav has to work late. He informs his wife that and tells her to not wait for him for dinner. But luckily he finishes his work early. The moment he is done with the final meeting he walks to his desk where he reads a quote he printed for himself, “Make me a singer.”
Remembering this he repeats the same line over and over again till he reaches his car. He looks at his watch and says, “I’m usually home by this time, oh god…” he prays, “…please no traffic today.”
Then as usual he gets in the car and starts driving. Raghav is unable to believe his luck. There’s actually no traffic today. Even when he sees a bunch of cars stopped at a signal, the moment he drives till that point, the signal turns green. Raghav is very happy to see how fast he is travelling through the city.
“I can’t believe this. I might just reach home in time for dinner.” he says pushing the accelerator paddle. The journey time from work to home is cut short in half. Parking the car in a separate garage space Raghav slowly walks to his house. He wants to surprise his wife so he walks to the back entrance.
There he hears a nice song being played. “It’s my favorite song.” he says while gently unlocking the door. Stepping in he realize that the song isn’t like being played on a radio or a audio system. Someone is actually singing it as a solo guitar number.
Raghav owns a big house, thanks to his late grandfather, so it takes him a while to find his wife. Kitchen, hall, study, bedroom… He eventually finds her in the dinning space. Watching her from the gap in the door he gets very excited. “I can’t believe how lucky I am to have such a beautiful wife. Good job, good wife, good house… If only this one thing happens in my favor, it’ll will be like I have everything.” he says while reading another similar frame that reads ‘Make me a singer.’
For a moment there Raghav loses himself in this fantasy. He continues to watch his wife from the gap. She seems happy as she walks around the dining table and then hugs a man sitting there with a guitar in his hand.
A young handsome man who in the moment is singing for her as she happily dances around him. As bad as this looks on top of that both of them are scantily dressed. Raghav doesn’t need to be a genius to understand what is happening here. But now he doesn’t know how to react in this situation.
In tough situations like these, for any person ‘how to react?’ is a big question. One might think, there is only one way to react, i.e. to catch them in the act. But that’s not true. The reaction varies from person to person. Raghav, since childhood was not really an aggressive person. Whenever he went through difficult time, his go to move was not to punch his way through but to sit in one place and cry.
Being an orphan his crying didn’t do much help. But it allowed him to drain out the fear and then think logically how to move forward.
Even in this situation, Raghav decides to slowly back off and step out of the house without alerting them. He came in his own house like a thief and now he is leaving like one.
All this time he keeps on wondering, “What went wrong?” “Why is she cheating on me?” If you imagine his thoughts to have a blame-meter, as he continued to think, the needle keeps on swaying between ‘she’ and ‘me’. Confused he slowly walks to the car with hopes to drive away. The car is almost out when suddenly the blame for cheating shifts to ‘she’.
Raghav drives the car back in. This time he is being deliberately loud. He sends a quick text to his wife saying that he is home. He slowly walks to the main door to ring the bell. Although he see nothing, he is able to hear sounds that indicate that the two people inside are panicking. The guy sneaks out from behind as his wife comes to open the door.
With a wide smile on her face, she invites him in. “Good! you came on time.” she romantically pulls him in, and guides him to the dining. “I had a gut feeling that you will come for dinner tonight.” she takes him to show the table set for dinner with complete mood lighting. “Surprise!” she cheers.
She did indeed surprise him but in a way he did not expect. Raghav is still on the fence whether to confront her or not. Every time he gathers courage to talk straight with her, he sees her beautiful face and fears that she might leave after he tells her what he saw.
Raghav displays clear signs of discomfort while they have dinner and until till they go to bed. When his wife asks about it he simply discards the question saying he is just tired. Meanwhile the wife shows no signs of guilt on her face.
It’s late in the night but Raghav is unable to sleep. Every time Raghav shuts his eyes, he sees his wife with that other man. He not only remembers what he saw earlier but his creative mind even imagines the things he didn’t see.
“What should I do? what should I do?” he asks himself while he see his wife next to him fast asleep. Whenever there is a problem in his life, Raghav refers to the wise words of his late grandfather, “When you don’t know what to do, just clean.”
Raghav walks to the study, a dedicated work space full of books, newspaper clippings and a work desk. In contrast to rest of the house, the furniture in this room looks antique indicating that Raghav has kept it that way in memory of his late grandfather. But the place is not clean as he barely gets any time to come here.
As instructed by those wise words, Raghav starts dusting the shelves. This line that his grandfather said to him actually has a deeper meaning. Raghav knows that. “By cleaning you mean sort your thoughts. Now I know. Still physical cleaning also helps.” He says while looking at a big photograph of his grandfather hanging on the wall.
Raghav moves from shelf to shelf while thinking, “what went wrong?”
Raghav’s parents passed away just a few days after he was born. Fortunately he had a grandfather who took care of him. But by the time he went to college, Raghav’s grandfather too passed away from old age. Still he had made arrangements for Raghav to have a smooth life without him. Raghav’s wife was his college love. She is the only girl he was ever in relationship with.
After grandfather’s passing Raghav felt lonely but then this girl provided the emotional support he needed. She took care of him as many years went by. First as a girlfriend and then as a wife. “When did things turn sour?” he wonders.
While dusting through Raghav finds a folder full of music sheets. This belongs to him. Raghav as a child was obsessed with music. While he was financially supported by his grandfather he aspired to become a singer and a music composer. But now he is neither. Perhaps the responsibility to support him and his wife pushed him away from his passion.
A few months ago when he got his old guitar serviced on recommendation of his wife, he didn’t know the first thing about where to start. After so many years his mind had forgotten how to play. Raghav got so frustrated that he sold the music instrument. While Raghav was fine with it, his wife wasn’t. After all the thing that made her fall in love with Raghav was his music and his voice.
Thinking the same Raghav carries these music sheets to table and sits staring at them. “She does not see that guy in me. I know that she is correct. But that does not give her right to cheat on me.” While he continues to think about it, he drifts to sleep.
Raghav suddenly finds himself inside the same study space. Except there are no walls and no ceiling. There’s this bright white light everywhere. Slowly the shelves and other furniture disappear too as Raghav finds himself automatically standing up. Then all of a sudden a huge divine figure appears in front of him, twice as the size of Raghav. He has to look up to make eye contact.
GOD: Hello Raghav. I hope you liked my gift.
RAGHAV: What gift… and who are you? what is this place?
GOD: I am god. Don’t you recognize me. This is the form you pray to, right?
RAGHAV: This can’t be real.
GOD: Oh, but this is.
RAGHAV: Am I in dream?
GOD: Yes you are. Still this is very real.
Raghav tries everything to snap himself out of this dream but he fails.
GOD: Stop resisting Raghav. You didn’t answer my question, did you like my gift?
RAGHAV: What gift?
GOD: The singer… the man who was with your wife earlier. Don’t you keep on repeating ‘make me a singer’. So I made you one.
RAGHAV: That’s… not… what!
Raghav doesn’t not know how to make sense of this. All this time Raghav was pretty sure what his wish is, “Make me a singer means, I want to rediscover my lost talent of singing.” He thought it was clear. But the way god interpreted it, he too seems right.
This is the problem I was talking about. When gods have the workload of fulfilling wishes of everybody one by one they usually don’t have the time to dig deeper to understand what the wisher actually means. This often results in blunders where people say, “I didn’t ask for this.” which eventually leads to the god wiping their memory and moving on.
GOD: I thought you would be pleased with what I just did for you. You wanted me to make a singer for you and your wife wished to have someone sing romantic songs for her. I thought this way I would kill two birds with one stone, not literally. I can’t kill two birds with one stone.
RAGHAV: What the fu- (voice mutes)
GOD: I fulfilled your wish many weeks ago. But when I heard you continue to wish the same you caught my attention. So tonight I fulfilled your another wish when you asked for wanting to reach home early. You know it is quite rare that a person gets a second wish fulfilled so soon. Still you don’t seem happy. Why?
RAGHAV: How could I be happy? I just caught my wife cheating on me with another man.
GOD: …and that is bad?
RAGHAV: Yes! Of course it’s bad.
GOD: So what do you want me to do now?
RAGHAV: Nothing! Please do me a favor and don’t fulfill any more of my wishes.
Depressed by this Raghav looks away thinking, “I wish… I wish I had not seen my wife with another man.”
Raghav doesn’t say it but god obviously hears it. “This I can do.” he says. “Now I feel like a genie granting three wishes. Still I’ll do it.” god jokes.
As it is the go to move of god to fix blunders is to erase their memory and move on. As courtesy he me makes this extra move so that Raghav forgets seeing his wife with another man.
Next morning, Raghav wakes up in the study where he slept last night. Seeing the music notes in his hand suddenly fills him with a lot of positivity. On contrary to what he has been doing for the past few months, it seems that Raghav is going to take matters in his own hands to reignite the flame of pursuing his passion of music and singing.
Something tells me that moving forward everything is going to be okay for a man named Raghav Mulshi.
THE END
RELATED STORY
When you do not know what to do…
This is the story of the wise quote passed down from grandfather to his grandson.
back to STORIES
First of all thank you for reading this post. What you read here is not my absolute belief set in stone. I am always open for discussion and future alterations to the post. Actually I consider these posts as a conversation starter. So if you have an opinion to share, please do comment down below.