Blessings~

She bowed with eyes closed, before the pleasant-faced deity, the patron God of the arts, the harbinger of good fortune and slayer of all evil. In her mind, quickly moving mass of chemical formulae straightened itself out of a jumble, sorted and shook itself straight, danced, morphed and then separated in orderly rows. “Get me out of this please please please dear God. I swear I wont have anything to do with medicinal chemistry ever again. Please God, those steroid transformations, where the circles close and open up and groups shuffle around rings on whim. No, I wont immigrate, not even if I get a full fee waiver and a visa for more med chem, so help me, God.”

She stood in front of the pleasant faced deity, strangely calm and wane, “You brought me to this and you will deliver. No, he says he’d rather not, he says he has other things to do. You have some other plans perhaps.” The marigold garlands seemed to take on the luster of the gold-plated idol. Outside, the rain-swept road was bustling with sounds of main street, small town India; honking rickshaws, buses hell-bent intent on finding a way, a song from a distant radio.

“Well, the company says its moving, lock, stock and filing cabinets. What shall we do? There really isn’t any work for me here. And I refuse to sit at home and be that ‘poor girl, she’s thirty- five and as yet, unmarried…’ The big city is scary, its is supposedly nasty, crime infested, and distant. And we don’t know anyone, not really. You think I should take a trial run and see how it goes?” Vighnaharta, one name among the million names the deity was known by, the remover of all obstacles, seemed to send a gentle smile her way.

Past ups and abysmal downs. Rejection letters, promotion highs, the first ever this and that, heartbreaks and tears. Illnesses patiently borne, fractures healed and falls that miraculously were stayed from becoming serious. Stock market ups and downs. Operations, home hunts, house changes, recalcitrant landladies, and landladies who miraculously became friends. Sudden insights and last-minute travel plan changes. Twist and turns, and an uncanny sixth sense that shielded her past people who didn’t seem right; life’s shortcuts that were better avoided.

Carried forth on a palm, protected, guided, no matter what.

Faith.