Does "fate" really exist?
Also called "destiny", or "karma", or "joss".....does it exist?

Is it true, as the Hindu's believe, that we have several lives and how we deal with this particular one (and our "fate") determines the level of our next life?

Is it true that we choose what "lesson" we will try to learn in this particular life (showing itself to us as our "fate"), just before we reïncarnate?

Is it true that we choose the life to learn that lesson in, even if it means being born in a slum like this? Meaning there is a good chance that we will die of malnutrition or disease before we are ten? Or that we will end up picking trough other people's trash for a living? Or that we are beaten up and electrocuted because it was our "fate" to fall in love with someone from another caste?

And is it true that MY "fate" was to come here and sit in my car, and then being approached by a lady with a kid on her shoulder, tapping my window and waving what looked like a prescription at me and no doubt telling me that the kid is sick and needs medicines and I should pay for it? And that the only thing I can think at that moment is that it was probably given to her when she was unloaded from the truck that delivers her every morning to the crossing where she begs? And that the kid maybe isn't hers to begin with?

Is it my karma to witness all this misery and to know I am powerless to change it? That I could start somewhere and never stop and as soon as I turn my back things will go back to what they have always been because the one thing I was not able to change was the mentality of the people? And that because I know this I have chosen NOT to start charity work but I try to take care of those that work for me, so that at least they, and their children, have a chance?

And despite this I always feel my stomach turning upside-down when I have to waive someone off, because deep down I have the feeling that no-none should be forced to live like this? And that I cannot imagine that the people here accept their situation as their "fate" because I would not? Because I was raised by parents who made me believe that it is your right to try to improve your situation?

And in the end.....what if the kid was really hers and it was really ill and I could have made the difference between life and death.....and I didn't?