Outwitting Fate – Part II

In the end of the first part Brahma, who came to write the future fortunes of the baby, was stopped by the Brahmin at the entrance…..

‘Stop right there!” said the disciple angrily. The great god shuddered, for no one so far had ever seen him or stopped him like this in his eternal round of duties. He was astonished and quite bewildered when he heard the following words of rebuke: ‘you old Brahmin, what do you think you”re doing, entering my master’s cottage without as much as a by-your-leave? Right in front of me! My teacher’s wife is in labor. You can’t go in there.”

Brahma explained hastily who he was and what he was about to do. The baby had already begun to leave the womb and he had very little time to waste. When the young man heard who he was, he tied his upper cloth around his waist as a mark of respect before an elder and a god, prostrated himself before Brahma, and begged his pardon.

Brahma was in hurry. He wanted to go in at once, but the young man would not let him go until he had told him what he meant to write on the forehead of the new born child. ‘Son” said Brahma, ‘even I do not know what my stylus will write on the forehead of the new born. As the child comes into the world, I place my stylus on its head and it writes the fate of the child according to its good or bad acts in its previous life. You shouldn’t stop me here. I have to go in at once.”

‘Then,” said the young man,” on your way out, you must tell me what was written on the forehead of my guru’s child.”
‘All right,” said Brahma in a hurry and went in. in a moment he returned, and the young man asked the god what his stylus had written.

‘Son, I”ll tell you what it wrote,” said Brahma. ‘But if you tell anyone about it , your head will split into thousand pieces. The child is a boy. He has a hard life before him. A buffalo and a sack of rice will be his share in life; he”ll have to live on it. What can be done?”
‘What! O father of the gods, this child is the son of a great sage. Is this his fate?” cried the disciple.
‘What do I have to do with it? Such are the fruits of his former life. What’s sown in past must be reaped in present. But remember what I said: if you reveal this secret to anyone, your head will explode into thousand pieces.”

Then Brahma vanished, leaving the disciple bewildered by what he had heard………..

To be contd……