Ever read the story titled “Monkey’s Paw“?.. Was part of some English syllabus at school.. a quick rewind.. Its about a couple getting a monkey’s paw as a gift, the paw has the power to fulfill three wishes, but they are also grimly warned to use the paw very cautiously, and to be careful of what they wish for, for it has strange way of doing things.. They could gift it to someone after their quota was over, but not before.. For a long time, the couple heeded the warning and refrained from using it, but one day the temptation grew too strong and one day they wished they could get some money. The next morning they had a visitor who said that their son had just got crushed under some machinery. He had died instanly, but they would be getting some money from the company. They were devastated and wished they could have their son back.. Sometime later their bell rang, and a disfigured grotesque creature told them he was their son and he had miraculously survived, they immediately wished that he were dead…
pause, back to track 1….A couple of weeks back, i was watching the Hungarian Grand Prix, and predicted that Alonso wouldnt finish the race. Given that Renault (alonso’s car) was performing like nothing could go wrong, over a dozen races, it was an idle prediction, and along with my retirement prediction for the other Renault driver, Fisichella, and the Maclaren driven Raikkonen, and my race order – Button, de la Rosa, Heidfeld and , it was taken exactly as that – an idle passing statement. But with constant egging from co-watchers about my lack of prediction skills, i was fervently hoping and praying and all the while somehow gaining confidence that it would happen exactly that way.
As the race went by, my favourite Schumacher was gaining ground, Raikkonen and Fisichella were out, and i was enjoying, except that Alonso was still on the track and leading… And then with 19 laps left, the unthinkable happened, Alonso retired from the race, leaving Button leading, followed by Schumacher, de la Rosa and Nick Heidfeld.. the reason i had said schumi would be 4th was i was being realistic and 5 points were enough to cut the championship lead to just 6 points. The race went on, and after some splendid racing de la Rosa overtook Schumi, with me cursing the toll the manoeuvres took on Schumi’s tyres.. And then Heidfeld made his move. A furious Schumi literally went out of his way to prevent an overtake.. that proved to be his downfall, as a few seconds later, he was nursing the car into the pits, retired….
i learnt some things from this… there is something about His system that answers even a single person’s prayers and gives him strength, if he wants it badly enough… but it also gives a monkey’s paw clause to it.. what you want will happen, but what happens with it, and alongside it, is His call.. In this case,i assumed that while all the others retired, Schumi would complete the race.. I realise that in all his agreements, He is in the details…
until next time, i am still confident that i have cracked something in His entire puzzle…. 😉