On Sunday, Jamie, Ami and their new flatmate Chrissy decided to go into the city for Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights. Up to that point, they had done little more than sit around the house, read, and play video games. The mere act of getting out and moving around was inviting.
When they walked in, the aroma of cooking nearly knocked Jamie back. The halls were crammed with stalls selling curries, bajis, and mango lassis of all kinds. Not a empty space was left.
"I'm going to get some baji. You girls want anything?" Jamie asked.
"Just a drink, thanks." Ami replied as she maneuvered though the crowd.
The line moved quickly. When he reached the stall, he pointed at one of the heated dishes.
"Baji please. One." He pulled out his money and handed it to the man.
"Oh, I do love baji." He heard a voice behind him say. Jamie turned around.
"Yeah, they're my favourite, too." Jamie smiled politely.
"You can't have Diwali without baji, I always say." The man was was dressed in a bright yellow robe embellished with sequins. He looked to Jamie like a stereotype of India. He must be a performer, Jamie thought. There had been a few earlier juggling and spinning bits of carpet on sticks.
"Oh." Jamie didn't know how to reply. He had never experienced Diwali before, but he was liking it so far.
"My soul has known Diwali many, many times." The man smiled. Jamie wondered if he was actually in line for food because he didn't seem anxious to get to the front. For that matter, Jamie wondered what was taking his food so long. There were only 5 dishes of food, but 8 men seemed to be operating the stall.
"Are you a Hindu?" Jamie asked.
"Oh yes, yes." The man smiled and looked slightly past Jamie.
"I've always been fascinated by the Hindu religion." Fascinated, Jamie knew, was an exaggeration. Mildly interested would have been a more appropriate description. "But I just don't understand the whole reincarnation thing."
"It's very simple," the man answered, "If you suffer in this life, your next life you will benefit."
"Sir, your baji." Jamie turned around to see a man holding a white, styrofoam container. Jamie took the baji, said goodbye to the man, and walked away.
Suffer and benefit. Pay and receive. It reminded Jamie of an article he'd read by Stephen Hawking. He was writing about quantum entanglement, the phenomenon whereby a particle traveling from point A to B doesn't just take one path, it takes all possible paths. When a photon travels from the lamp to your eye, he wrote, it moves in a straight line, but it also dances about in twists and swirls, travels to Jupiter and back, and ricochets off the Great Wall of China. And so, he postulates, why not us? Just as the photon travels in every direction at once, so too must the history of the universe. We've done everything before. We've made all these decisions, just as we've made all possible varieties of the same decision.
Jamie finishes his baji. A group of older woman are performing a traditional dance. According to Hawking, he's been here before--an infinite number of times. Surely, he thinks, that can't be.
Later that evening, Jamie checks his email. His father had written him concerning a blog entry Jamie had written where he troubles with his decision to start web development--wondering if it was all a bit too late. The email began, "Do you know how old I was when I first started coding?" Jamie had no idea. He read on.
I'll give you a few hints: we had been back from Australia for one year, I'd been the Coordinator for Columbia College's Evening Studies program in Wichita for a year, and Grandpa Smith convinced the manager of the Scientific Computing group at Beech that I would be a good employee, even though I would need training in computing. Libby wasn't yet one. It was early in 1976 and I was 29.
Are the choices we make in life really our own? Have we made them before? Are we somehow following a trail that's invisible except for in the right light, like the shimmering footprint of a snail? Jamie didn't know. But he felt reassured after reading his father's email--like (this time) he was doing something right.
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