The more I see of life, the more I’m convinced that things unfold just the way they’re meant to be. Tutu Aunty was one of those larger than life women I had met as a little girl. Our interactions were infrequent and I never met her again but I can never forget her personality – it was just too loud to be forgotten. Of course I was all of four when I made this impression , when loud meant a different kind of loudness – anyone who laughed too openly or spoke too loudly qualified as loud in my child’s mind. And she was big , yet again from my three feet high perspective. She had a way of making her presence felt in a way that you could never forget her and what has made her even unforgettable is  what has now become our family folk lore – her  claim that she was going to be the wife of a successful man. This story has been told to me time and time again by my mother who always admired Tutu’s confidence and supreme faith in the fact that her husband’s success was dependent on HER because it was in HER destiny to be the wife of a successful man! So while her husband doggedly went at his work, Tutu continued living her life the way she wanted, supremely confident that her husband would reach the top of his ladder purely on the basis that she was his wife.

Fortunately, Tutu Auntie’s faith in this prophecy proved true .

This morning I opened the newspaper to find yet another example of a woman succeeding after her husband’s demise. For years this lady had laboured at her workplace without much monetary reward or recognition. In fact she had had a tough life-  managing a home, a career and a husband who demanded a lot of her time and energy with his chronic ill health. Suddenly, with his sad demise, it wasn’t just another door that opened up but the whole world that suddenly became her oyster.

No sooner did she get back on her feet  than she found a job that was fulfilling and bringing her fame and fortune too! It seemed that her husband and his karma was pulling her down and with him out of the way, her career was free to blossom.

But the fact that she was “unsuccessful” all this while only proves Jo’s theory that our lives are a Novel scripted by God  to make a perfect story . So a spouse may pull down or pull up a person’s career, but one cannot deny or defy one’s karmic destiny.