Lakshmi Narayan

This is the story of a girl next door. Ordinary and average like you and me. She fought and resisted plans of the Maker because she was too afraid to be singled out, in case it separated her from her loved ones. She found refuge in mediocrity, so she wouldn’t carry the stigma of being a freak or a fraud. She had no idea if she believed in angels and spirits or life beyond. But most of all, she had no belief in herself.

One day, the Person Above decided to make her his messiah. He didn’t place a halo above her head or dress her up in white, or make her give up her family and friends. Instead, he put little gems of home-spun wisdom on her tongue. So every time she opened her mouth, people stopped to listen and nod.

The girl became too terrified to open her mouth. She didn’t want to be singled out as the odd one. She was happy to blend in and be Miss Average. She begged the Maker to take away her exceptional powers and make her normal like other people.

In reply, he gave her x-ray vision by which she could peep into everyone she knew. She found out to her surprise that the same brilliance, the same intelligence, the same spirituality, existed in all of them. She was as unique and as common as the rest.

“I cannot make you ordinary because you are all special,” explained the Maker. The girl then understood that whatever she was spouting was already in her and not deposited there by the Maker. He had only unblocked her channels, so that there could be a free flow of words and ideas. Accepting his bounty meekly, the reluctant messiah went on to become the ebullient messiah, spreading the joy of creation to one and all.

There’s no difference between the gifted and the ungifted. We are all lovingly crafted by the Creator.

(Excerpted from Fables from Beyond, Authors Upront, 2020)

Journalist, author and animal activist Lakshmi Narayan is a former assistant editor of Femina and former editor of Eve’s Weekly & Flair