What would be the story like when I start writing it? Will it be an extraordinary tale or an ordinary story? And where do I start because I don't remember many things that have passed and some of which I remember is mostly hazy.

Right now all that is vivid in my memories is a weird thing. Nobody would want to read a story about hands. These are one of the only few things I remember; hands of the people that have been in my life.

When I look at my hands I see many people there. I wash my hands like my grandmother who died recently. I keep them one on the other when I sit, like my mother and when I realize it I put them apart because my mother's has not been a very happy life and I don't want to become a woman like her always wishing something good and hardly getting the wishes granted. My hands are like my father's when I talk and sway them from on end to another to stress a point. Do I like my hands that way? I don't think so. I think people look at my mobile hands more and listen less to me when I am swaying my hands. It makes me nervous and self-conscious and I stop doing it.

These are not beautiful hands either. Not with the female fingers that adorn a beautiful painting. Or like the hands that are described in poetry and stories everywhere. These are strange and mixed hands.

I remember when I was in school, which was a Hindu religious one, I used to chant mantras that praise the power in our human hands. The front of the hand symbolizes Laxmi, the Goddess of Riches, in the middle resides Saraswati, the Goddess of Wisdom, in the root of the hands resides God himself and hence one should see one's hands first thing in the morning.

As I said my hands are mixed hands, I don't know if Laxmi sits in the front part of it anymore though I see my hands first thing in the morning anyway. But I know Saraswati must reside in the middle. Or they might switch places I don't know.

There are several lines on my palms that seem to change every time I look for changes. I have read in cheap astrology books that these lines have meaning. Some of them make you lucky and some of them make you unlucky and things happen to oppose you. I have seen lines that are not described anywhere and I am thinking if those small lines make a difference. The dark and long ones are fine. They are predestined which means God has already written the script of my life and I am only an agent acting it out.

I believe in this concept partially. Many things look predestined to me. I have had many dreams and the same hands since I was born and realized I had hands. Not many of them came true. I dream all the time. And pray and look at my hands. I think why my life has to be the way it is now. These are some passing thoughts. They do not normally affect me much. But sometime it is intense and then I cry hard and think hard if there is really such a story written for me. Is there really someone up or down anywhere who cares that these stories are performed well by the people who can do only little about changing them. The modern people and the science tell me it is silly to think that you can not change the story of your life and all that stops you from doing so is nothing but superstition. I tend to believe in that too. For me anything that seems to work for me is believable. So I believe in science and I believe in the possibility of God too. But I do not believe I can change my story entirely. And it is not a happy thought to have. I would like to turn and twist the story as much as I wanted. And that will make it interesting.

I imagine the lines on my palms changing with the speed of light and giving me every choice in the world and possibly the time to pick them as I wish. I also want them to give me a feedback on what it would be like having chosen a chain of them so I could make sure it is great living through them even before I make the choices. In other words, I do not like the beauty of future. I want to make sure it is changeable even when it is unpredictable. But how can that be. Future can either be predicted and changed or unpredicted. The risk is the beauty.

And I don't think there is a past then. If whatever coming to me is already decided and hence unchangeable what's the use having a past. It is purely useless and nothing relates to nothing. Prediction based on past is an illusion as for life. Similar settings do not always produce similar future. And that makes the past more useless.

And is there a present then? Right now, I am waiting for the next tick in the clock and as soon as it happens there is another tick to wait for. Why do people call this wait, the present. I don't do anything but wait or something while waiting.

So I think if there is anything in life it is the future. And future is unpredictable and it may be unchangeable if things do not really relate to things.

What do these lines stand for then. Why do I have to try to know something that I can never know entirely. There may not even be an entirety. But still I have to try and look for it.

Or I have a choice to not think and live just as most people do. Wait for the tick, work wait for the next tick. That is not as easy as it sounds. Besides my hands with these crisscross lines, I unfortunately have another part of me that makes things confusing. I don't know if God resides there too because God is formless and He can move anywhere. As I can see my hands I want to be able to see my mind too. And pray and praise it in mantras. And see what is written there may be in the form of lines. And if my grandparents and my parents are there too.

It seems I want many things that can only happen if someone else wanted them to happen. And then I think if there is a collective future. Some huge hands with lines for everyone and everything on them. Will that make sense to whoever draws the lines. Well it will be easier. And if there are some huge hands somewhere as I imagine. Then I must be wrong in my previous thinking and then things would relate to things on those hands. Whose hands those would be. Would those be God's. And then will there be a future for him too? Who'd make lines on His palms? And if He does it for Himself why wouldn't he let me do so for myself too.