I will never forget the day...

I woke up in a ghost town: New Year’s Day in Patong - a post-party paradise. The hotel staff were still fast asleep on mattresses in reception. The loud Brit from last night - passed out on a deck chair. No “friendly” scooter taxi drivers waiting outside. Just me. I walked down the road in search of breakfast. In search of life.

The circus of drag queens wielding iguanas and pretty Thai “girls” wielding other exotic surprises had now left town. Like empty bullet shells, cocktail “buckets” rolled around in the gutters - the only evidence of last night's debauchery.

I sat down at the first restaurant I found - too hungover to exert myself any further. I placed my order, fell back into my chair, closed my eyes and basked in the Thai sunlight.

A man came walking down the road - barefoot, dressed in loose-fitting orange clothing, with an impressive turban on his head. He walked towards me with such purpose. It felt like I had arranged to meet him there. I shifted awkwardly in my seat.

“May I join you?” he asked while pulling out a chair at my table.
“Uhm… Sure?”

He proceeded to tell me that he was a guru from India. That he had very little but was filled with joy. He told me that he could see the future - he could see my future: the boy I had just started dating would be “The One”, the job I had now was not the right one for me, and that I would be very rich three years from now.

A few eye-rolls later, he took a piece of paper from my notebook and started writing something. He folded and folded the piece of paper into the size of a coin and asked me to hold it tightly in my hand. I obliged, wondering how much this magic trick would cost me.

He then asked me three questions and instructed me to write my answers in my notebook without him seeing them - all the while holding the piece of paper in my other hand.

“What is your favourite colour?” I wrote “blue”.
“Where are you from?” I wrote “South Africa”.
“What is your mother’s first name.” I wrote “Matilda”.

“Have a look,” he said, confidently gesturing to the folded piece of paper.

I started unfolding it to reveal his answers: “blue South Africa Matilda”.

And with that he got up and left. Before I could question him. Before I could pay him.

Before I could thank him.

Three years later I travelled to India before starting a new job. I watched the sunrise on the Taj Mahal, in the arms of “that” boy. I realised that, even though I had very little, I too was filled with joy. I was very rich indeed.