Archive for April 4, 2011

Lucky stared forlornly out of her bedroom window, eyeing the miserable weather which rather matched her mood.

“I’m due a change of luck” she sighed to herself, not the least bit ironically.

Lucky Patel had resented her name for as long as she could remember.  There simply wasn’t an ounce of truth in it.  She thought she might be the unluckiest person alive.  She had been named by her eccentric and superstitious mother after a visit to a clairvoyant had left her convinced that her eldest child was destined to be lucky.  As far as Lucky was concerned, this amateur palm reader must have been convincing as her mother, so she had heard, was always enlightened by her visits.  Lucky was not a believer.

At least her mother had been consistent with all her children.  Lucky’s brother had been named Kash, after it was foretold he would be rich.  Her younger sister would be beautiful and was named Priti.

Lucky was never able to discuss this peculiar fascination with her mother because tragically she had died in childbirth with her fourth child.  The child had not survived either.  Lucky grew up devastated, confused and emotionally scarred.

For Lucky and her siblings, the prophecies seemed some way off the mark as they reached their teens.  Kash was forever launching hair-brained schemes chasing a quick buck and forever falling flat on his face.  His resilience had to be admired, but rich he was not.  Priti was a very ordinary, rather goofy looking teenager and resented her prediction as much as Lucky.

However, when in their early twenties, fortunes had changed for two of the siblings.  Kash’s perseverance paid off when an entrepreneur was suitably impressed with one of his ideas to lay down significant investment and he hadn’t looked back.

Priti’s looks had much improved in her late teens and she had blossomed to such a degree that during a fashion show at university, she was approached and signed up by a leading modelling agency.  It’s fair to say she was now very popular with the young men of Pinner.

 Lucky, though, remained deeply unlucky.  And she was deeply fed up.

Staring out of the window as the rain lashed down, spilling through the gutters, Lucky made a promise to herself. A promise that she would find the soothsayer who had so impressed her mother and demand she explain what lay behind the prophecy which now haunted her.

There was one problem.  All three children had been born in Mumbai before the family moved over to the leafy suburb of Pinner where she had spent much of her life.  How on earth would she track this woman down?  Was she even still alive? She was from the Mumbai slums.  Lucky had recently watched Slumdog Millionaire.  She had a fair idea that the slums of Mumbai were one of the most unwelcoming and inhospitable places on Earth.  Lucky was resolved to try and her first point of contact would be her aunt who still lived near the area they all grew up.

Mumbai was not the place she remembered.  They had visited regularly after moving to the UK whilst her mother was still alive but somehow they had drifted apart from their Indian heritage after she had died, her father too crushed to relive the past.

The sights and the smells remained familiar and evocative but the deeper divide between rich and poor made her spirits sink and curiously made her feel lucky for the first time that her family had escaped this place.  Her family was neither rich nor poor but had they stayed in India, they would probably have struggled to adapt to the Bollywood riches dominating this great city.

Lucky’s aunt welcomed her with open arms.  Sonali had been very close to Lucky’s mother and had taken her untimely death badly.  Worst of all she had been denied the opportunity to see the children grow up.

Sonali had mixed news for Lucky.  She had found an old diary from around the time the children were born capturing the precious thoughts of her mother from a bygone era but there was little direct mention of this medium other than two pieces of information.  Her name was Mona and she had bright blue eyes – a very distinguishing feature.  However this aside, Lucky had no idea how old Mona would have been when she was born, and therefore was no clearer as to whether she was still alive now.  Lucky had no choice but to believe.

Determined that her luck was about to change, Lucky set out into the slum heartland with no fixed plan but driven by hope.  As she trudged through the mazy labyrinth of dirt-ridden streets, she clung ever more desperately to hope.  Numerous roadside shacks offered a plethora of services but for hours on end, Lucky was unable to find even the smallest connection to Mona.

Close to despair and for the first time feeling resigned to failure, Lucky was drawn towards something that piqued her attention.  Posted on the wall of the shack to her left was a picture of an elderly lady, ordinary in almost every way except for her eyes.  Eyes as blue as the sky.  Could it be?   Lucky’s heart began to race but she remained calm.  A lifetime of disappointment had conditioned her to cautious optimism at best.  This time, however, she had reason to be joyous, her impossible mission complete.  She had found Mona. 

The elderly lady whose face adorned the photo had been watching Lucky silently from the rear of the shack.  A sixth sense which she had traded off for many years drew her up from her chair.  Quite an undertaking for she was now very frail.

Their eyes locked.  Lucky could see that, despite Mona’s physical frailties, her piercing blue eyes shone with wonder.  Lucky began to feel a sense of what had drawn her mother in here all those years ago.

“Come closer my child” beckoned Mona.  “Let me study you. Let me understand why you have travelled so far to find me”.  You did not need to be psychic to realize Lucky’s complexion betrayed the fact she was not local. 

Lucky did not know this woman yet she felt instantly drawn in.  There was a connection, an electricity between them.

 “I have come to search for the truth about my mother” replied Lucky, assuredly.  “She used to come and visit you over twenty years ago when she lived in Mumbai.  She trusted you and she believed in what you told her.  She even named her children on the basis of your predictions about our future.”  Lucky reached into her pocket and withdrew a slightly crumpled picture of her mother.  A picture she cherished more than anything.  She handed the picture to Mona.

Mona instantly recognized her.  “Your mother was a special lady, child.  She was right to believe. Tell me, have my predictions come true?” queried Mona.  “Is that why you have come to find me?”

“Your prediction about me has not!” blurted Lucky, a little over-zealously.  Then after a short pause, “but what you foretold about my brother and sister, that has come true” she volunteered, her tone more resigned.

“Child, what I told your mother is what I have seen.  It is the truth.  It will happen.  I never told her when my prophecies would be realized”.  Be patient my child and try not to force your destiny.  This is your fate.  You will see and you must believe”.  The power of Mona’s words cut right through Lucky.  This old woman’s wisdom was clear but her unwavering belief in her own visions made Lucky begin to realize just why her mother had been so drawn in.  Mona’s convictions were clear. 

Lucky felt energized as she wandered back to meet her aunt, just as her mother had done all those years ago.  Her usual cautious optimism put aside momentarily by a sense of euphoria.  She had found something she scarcely knew she had lost.  Faith.

The following day, Lucky was buoyant, fizzing with new energy and hope.  A weight had been lifted.  For so long she had resented her name, nothing more than an albatross around her neck.   Deep down, she also resented her mother.  For leaving her.  For leaving them all.  A burden so great, it had affected her life more than she had known.

It was her last day in Mumbai and Lucky decided to add a little glamour to her trip. She booked a night at the famous 5 star Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.  A grand, sophisticated building overlooking the Gateway of India and popular amongst rich tourists and well heeled locals.  A well deserved treat.

Lucky spent the afternoon exploring the streets of modern Mumbai, having discovered the seedier side the previous day. With a spring in her step and no care in the world, Lucky felt alive and at peace.

Returning to the hotel, she relaxed in the decadent spa and then returned to her room for a long soak before preparing to meet some old friends for dinner in one of the upmarket restaurants within the hotel.

Emerging from her luxurious bath, wrapped in a cuddly toweling dressing gown, Lucky’s perfect day was winding up to a crescendo when she was disturbed from her relaxed state by commotion in the corridor outside her room.  Cautiously, she approached her bedroom door and eased it gently open to be confronted by the most horrific scene.  

Two gunmen, their faces contorted with rage, were firing bullets indiscriminately, seemingly intent on mass murder. One of the gunmen twisted round and stared directly at Lucky. He raised his gun towards her ready to fire but the mechanism locked and the gun failed to fire. Lucky was frozen to the spot as the gunman stared directly into her eyes and in a cold, calculated manner prepared to take aim again.  As his finger pulled back on the trigger, his fellow gunman shouted for him to keep moving, breaking his steely concentration for a split second dragging him forward, around the corner and out of sight.

Lucky should be dead. In one fell swoop a lifetime of luck had befallen her.

The night that terrorists swooped on Mumbai committing untold atrocities will forever be etched as a painful memory on the citizens of Mumbai and indeed India. For Lucky, however, it was a symbolic life changing event for different reasons.  She didn’t believe it was a coincidence.   From that moment on, Lucky believed she had a purpose.  She had cheated death, she had found inner peace and never again would she allow herself to wallow in self pity.

Within months of her return to Pinner, the lives of her siblings started to fall apart.  Kash had taken one gamble too many and as quickly as he had made his millions, he’d lost them.  He was facing bankruptcy.

Priti’s popularity with men was never in question but the man she had fallen for, her one true love, could not cope with his jealousy and had himself found solace in the arms of another woman.  Priti’s heart had been broken.  She had lost her spark.  It seems beauty didn’t equate to happiness.

Lucky was the eldest child and her role was now clear.  She would be the glue that bound her family together and through her faith her family would thrive again.  Mona was right.  Fate had intervened and this would be her legacy.