Crossroads..

By Roshni Mulchandani

I came up to the intersection of two roads. I pressed the big round button to cross both ways. Each of them moody, took their time to decide which wanted to let me walk. Left. Right. My eyes watching to see which white man would finally tell me to walk. I took a step back and viewed my options. I could goleft but left always rang negative. It meant the easy way to success. It demonstrated my desperation to reach my destination under any cause. It was faster but it wasn't ultimately where I wanted to go. I took a deep breath,peered from behind my sunglasses and waited for the Gods to make their decision. I waited for the universe to tell me which way was the correct way. In the final moments, I glanced both ways again. I knew what I had to do. I had to wait. I waited and the universe spoke."Right." The right path shone its path. The white man showed me the way. I smiled, bid the wrong path goodbye and walked on the path to "right"eousness.

Okay, so it wasn't that serious but I really did have an odd revelation today. Running errands this morning, I was waiting to cross the street and I found myself pressing both buttons. Rationally, I thought to myself, whichever one "rung" first, I would cross that way. Both routes were the same distance apart. It really didn't matter actually. However, I took a step back and thought about how my life had really come to a similiar crossroads. Just as the routes were exactly the same distance apart just like where my life had come to. Whichever way I chose, I had to struggle and wait, but I would reach my destination. The connotation of "left" is considered dirty and evil. We are told not to eat with our left hands for various reasons - the left is the devil's way. Left would mean walking the road with lies and deceit. Walking the right way is self explanatory. So I decided I would let the universe decide for me with this small incident. I took a step back and waited. It became perhaps one of the longest waits of my life. Finally, the universe spoke: Right. I smiled and before I took my step forward, looked left, smirked at the Left Devil and walked on to the right path of life!

It's really all a matter of choices. As Robert Frost, the poet once wrote:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Picture: Mike Deakin