It was a pretty navy blue. Shiny and gently bobbing, its
wings had a black and yellow outline. The prettiest combination. It meandered about right in front of me. I followed it enchanted, feeling a sense of déjà vu – I had envisioned this exact scene just a few innocent hours ago in one of the most vivid dreams I had ever experienced. I wondered how that happened. Was it just coincidence? What were the odds of me seeing the butterfly with all its symbolic significance in real life just when I thought of it? Was it a sign, an omen? What? I was confused and didn’t like it. The one day I think of the butterfly, a very specific one too, I see the exact replica of it in life, moving just as I imagined it. In my dream, the butterfly represented free choice and free will. Seeing it in real life however, ironically made me question myself in the opposite direction. Do we really have free choice? Or is everything a premeditated set of coincidences with the illusion of us being in control?

February 2004. I was arguing with my dad about my deviant desire of leaving the country. Born and brought up in India, I had never stepped a foot on anything but Indian soil. While content with this, I cherished an unearthed wish to travel and see the world. I was only twelve, but was capable enough of having a mature discussion with him about visiting the United States – just for a visit. Just for a chance to see something new and different. Ba Da Bing, Ba Da Bang - June 2004 - My dad came home and announced that we were moving to Chicago for a year. A short three months earlier, the very idea of us leaving Bangalore was madness, and now all those obstacles just seemed to have been pushed away (for the time being). All of a sudden, it was alright for my brother and I to suddenly switch educational systems and for us to leave everything we knew (our home, family, and friends) and move to Chicago – even if only for a year. Little did we know it would get extended to three. The funny part? When my dad was given this offer from his company, the only reason he took it seriously was because he knew of my wish to travel. It was an absolute impossibility in February for us to up and leave, and in June my dad somehow found a way. Coincidence?

One day, I was really sick. The doctor suggested having plain yogurt with no sugar. On campus, I had not found this anywhere and was too sick to walk to a grocery store. There was ample sugared, flavored yogurt in the dining hall and the convenience store on campus, but nowhere could I find non sugared yogurt. The non sugared yogurt was supposed to provide immediate
relief. Just that one specific day however, Marillac cafeteria decides to start its granola and yogurt station – and lo and behold – it had plain unsweetened yogurt. Coincidence?

My yoga teacher. Senior year of high school, I spoke to him a lot. That isn’t normal. Unlike here in the United States, students don’t maintain such an informal, friendly attitude with their teachers. In India, teachers were at a different pedestal from students. They were not friends.
They were our aides and counselors but not at the close level of friends. Conversing freely with my yoga teacher about personal and academic life was one hundred percent abnormal. But my life was going helter skelter senior year. On the outside I looked put together. Perfect grades. Smile plastered across my face. On the inside, I was screaming my brains out. And in this state, along came my yoga teacher. Yoga had been started in my school just that year. I don’t even
know how we started to converse with each other or how we transcended the student-teacher divide and became friends. He helped me. He was wise. He pulled me through. He gave me the
courage to smile from the inside again, the way I always had and always would (knock on wood), aside from those four months of high school. When I couldn’t talk to anyone and was barricaded within myself, the most unconventional form of release and help walks my way. Coincidence?

During my three year stay in Chicago(8th-10th grade), I had visited Manhattan briefly for a day. In that one visit, I remember saying to myself, I want to live here by myself. Perhaps for college. Three years later, surprise of surprises, I land up in New York City. Coincidence?

I remember craving samosas (Indian snack) all during the school day one hot summer day in Bangalore. They’re hard to make and are usually bought from stores. I walked through the door of my home after school that day and somehow, my mom had sensed I would want samosas. She had bought some earlier that day and had them waiting for me. Coincidence?

Small things. Big things. Everything. Are all of them coincidences? Are they affected by our actions? Are they premeditated? Or perhaps, are there several courses of action and we end up walking on one through our reactions to the premeditated stimuli around us? ARE we in control? All these above instances are just a few of the myriad that show life to be a little more than just a random happening of events. Everything seems to be connected like a web. Small threads for the little things. Big concrete threads for the bigger things that perhaps form the outlines of our lives. The smaller threads then maybe fill in the intricate details. Does this web have the splash of the navy blue of my butterfly? Everything I have done so far, I believe I have done through conscious choice and decision. But what of all the things that weren’t in my control but worked in my favor? It could be possible that all my choices led me to all the unrelated events. I’m trying to unscramble it out in my mind. Benjamin Button (from the Oscar winning movie) said, “Sometimes we're on a collision course, and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or
by design, there's not a thing we can do about it.” I think all our lives are a collision course. It may look like it’s by accident, or we may figure out the design, but through our own choices and random events, we still wouldn’t be able to change the eventual trajectory we follow. If we do change it, and think it was because of the power we had to change it, it’s possible that this new path is what we were meant to follow all along and were meant to switch to it. Once again, the sense of control dissolves.

But the navy blue butterfly still bobs ahead of me. I had seen it in a dream. Now I see it in reality. Confused? Me too.