Coincidence

Sometimes I wonder whether I believe in fate. Or in coincidences. I don't mean the usual thing of thinking about someone who you haven't thought about/seen for the last twenty years suddenly and they pop up at the corner/restaurant/coffee shop unexpectedly. That's just life, not a strange happening. Come to think of it, if it's twenty years ago that you last saw them/thought of them, chances are pretty good you studied with them and that means you both probably grew up in the same town and their parents still there and doesn't it stand to reason that they come back at least once in twenty years to visit said parents. And probably, without realising it, someone walking down the street was announcing into their cellphone that xyz, my brother who hasn't been home for the last twenty years is here and I'm meeting him round the corner so obviously you thought of him too and since you were going around the same corner as well, met him. Nope, that's not the kind of coincidence I mean.

One of my aunts committed suicide many years ago. She had her reasons, I guess, though the official verdict was depression. What I just couldn't understand was the way she chose to go. She obviously thought about it and planned it in detail. She borrowed a can of kerosene from someone one day, the next morning she sent her maid/companion out of the house on some pretext, drenched herself with the kerosene and set herself alight. The companion found her and came for my father. By the time he got there, she was nothing but flames pouring off an unrecognisable burnt body-shaped thing. It took us all a long time to come to terms with this. In fact, sometimes I wonder whether we really did. Last year, my mother's sister also lost a sister-in-law to fire. That was an accident. She was in the yard, raking leaves and lighting them and I think what happened was that she tripped and her saree caught fire. She was burnt pretty badly. She survived a few days but died of the burns. A couple of months ago, another of my mother's sisters lost a niece, also to burns, also in an accident. She had found an ant's nest and was getting rid of it using kerosene and fire. She tripped and it was the same story all over. She survived a few days but finally succumbed. It just suddenly struck me that my mother and two of her sisters have had death come to their husbands' families through fire.

It just made me wonder because it's not a common or a natural death. So, what are the odds on that coincidence?