Alchemist is perhaps one book that you do not go in search for, when you are ready it appears before you. I have read the book eleven years ago, did not understand what the book was all about, just read it because everyone else was reading it. Very recently, the book found me and when I say the book found me, it literally did find me. I was not looking for it particularly. An audiobook link appeared as a “recommended for you” in my Youtube page, just a week before I was about to get on a plane to Trivandrum, my home town. I had this strange feeling in my mind that this time I am going to be in Trivandrum for the longest time since I left Trivandrum in 2005. I do have fond memories of Trivandrum and get particularly defensive should anyone start criticizing (“justifiably”) this lovely city. But each time I am here, I cannot stay for more than one week. Yet here I am in my fourth week in this city and making plans to be based out of here at least for the next one year. The significance of the book is slowly sinking in.

Most of my friends have left this city. I mean except for one of my closest friend ( who is married and has a totally different life now), everyone else have moved out of this city, either to larger cities within India or abroad. Coming back after six years and looking up old friends from school and college, I notice that almost all of them have gotten married and are working outside Kerala or have left the country.

I had left this place too, not very unlike Santiago, searching for the “personal legend”, the search took me from Trivandrum to Bangalore to London to Dubai to London and back to Trivandrum. Did I come here voluntarily? Nope, Sequence of events since last June led me to back to Trivandrum. Steve Jobs is 100% right for having said “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” It is true and I now I understand some of the sequence of events. No I did not find Fatima along the way, perhaps I might have come across the baker’s daughter (you will get it, if you have read the alchemist).

Like it is said in The Alchemist, to realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation. It is funny that the journey I started from the day when I left college in 2005 and which took me half way across the world is now continuing this leg of the journey 100 meters away from where I started. Yup, my office is just 100 meters away from my one of my last alma mater in Trivandrum. I am not sure, if this is actually where the treasure is, I intend to find out.