Fate, Fatalism...and Stupidity

Srinivas, a 50-years old doctor, had a mild backache that he thought was due to his workouts. When it didn’t settle, he had an X-ray done, which showed a spot in one of the vertebrae, which then turned out to be multiple spots on an MRI. A PET/CT showed a mass in the lungs, that was proven to be cancer. With no risk factors (he was a non-smoker with no exposure to passive smoking and no family history), he suddenly turned out to have metastatic Stage IV lung cancer and after 3 1/2 years of fighting it out, passed away recently.

I could go on and on. Your life could be sailing along fine when suddenly, a truck comes from the side at night and bangs into your car and a dear one dies. Or the plane that you are traveling in crashes. Or you fall into a pothole during the monsoons…which actually happened to a colleague of mine. Or a cement brick falls on you from a height. Or you happen to be crossing the Elphinstone Station over-bridge and it collapses (though this is a form of structural violence on those using local trains in Mumbai by those in power who do not believe that their safety is important).

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