Serendipity, the art of making an unsought finding

Now, it seems like I’ll get a bit more frequent here. Here, I’m with another post of mine; and this time it is inspired by (but not based on) the movie, which I saw yesterday, “Serendipity”. This movie was suggested to me by numerous of my friends but I didn’t get a chance to watch it, until recently. As a film, it is not very out-of-the-world sort of, however it has serendipitously, much resemblance to the bollywood film-making.

Anyways, the film has defined Serendipity as the fortunate accident and this is the most beautiful part of this term. It is an accident but a fortunate one; it’s like searching for something but ending up getting something else which makes even more sense to you. It’s nothing but prophesying that “Good Shit Happens”. As a famous scholar holds the view that a lot more decisions are made on serendipity than people think. According to him, things come across their radar screens and they jump at them. Regarding my belief in it, I would say that I don’t have many such moments to cherish but I still have faith in it and believe that someday, something will happen; which would make me stand in the likes of S.N.Bose, Louis Pasteur, Christopher Columbus and Alexander Fleming; the people who have experienced, felt and enjoyed the gifts of serendipity.

One aspect of serendipity to bear in mind is that you have to be looking for something in order to find something else. This peculiarity makes serendipity a very beautiful phenomenon. One more feature which adds to its beauty is the timing. You get things, when they were least expected. However, not everyone is blessed with it. I was going through one of the blog of my friend, titled “Good Shit Happens” and he pointed out following things which he experienced: Failing to secure a slot in the class he wanted only to find out later that the professor for that class flunked 3/4 of the students. Waiting patiently in a long queue when the cashier at the next freshly opened counter calls his attention to be her first client. He was the last person to get his waitlist cleared in IIT-Bombay.

Now, let me share true incidents of my life, which were very similar to all this but having different outcomes. So, have a taste as how the life may look like without serendipity: Today was for the fifth time when I bunked a class and had surprise quiz in the same lecture. Waiting in a long queue and by the time I reach the counter, there are lunches or breaks or offs at the counter. This one has happened for so many times that I even lost the count. Thirdly, at the end of admissions procedure, I was Waitlist No. 1 for IIM-Ahmedabad.

Well, I was the victim of Murhpy’s law or Zemblanity (though I've no regrets for any of those things which didn't happen because I believe that whatever happens, happens for a reason and whatever doesn't happen, was never meant to happen) but the matter of fact is, even serendipity doesn’t happen with everyone and of course, not every time. One more thing, there is a fine line between serendipity and stalking. So, beware of that too. Despite all this, I hereby want to appreciate my encounters (which are though very few in numbers) with serendipity. One of them occurred to me few hours back which acted as the second trigger (after the movie) for me to scribble here. It all started with me participating in an online event of a b-school fest. While filling up the form, I messed up something in the column of e-mail address and hence the automatic acknowledgment mail bounced back to the organizers. They, being responsible organizers, saw that and tried contacting me. One of them called me up and notified me about this. Hearing a female voice, like a typical guy, I didn’t right-away disconnect the call rather I started asking her about the event format and all obvious-but-relevant stuff. Suddenly, she asked me if by any chance, I’ve ever been to Mussoorie. Listening to my awe-struck yes, she said that she is the girl who defeated me in the Chess Finals at Woodstock in an Inter-School Tournament (after which we became good friends). That day, we went for the prom together and later, exchanged our phone numbers (that was a no-mobile phone era) however we could never talk because I miswrote her number and when she tried to call me up after two weeks, my numbers were changed. Now, here we meet again; this is what I call a pure serendipity – getting something when it was least expected. And, yeah at least I don’t find any logic behind this kind-of incident. If you can find any other good reason, then you possess full right to disagree to me.

So, I would just conclude saying that all the time, Serendipity is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

I'm back, but without any bang

Long ago, there existed a blog, which couldn’t get updated due to my laziness. I happened to procrastinate a lot; I’m planning to change that habit of mine and I’m starting my quest with this blog. Now, one may think as why I need to change this, for whom. Well, then the reply is pretty clear. I’m doing this for myself, only. It is amazing what you can do when time seems to be as abundant as a grain of sand in a beach. It amazes me for sure. This makeover is because of that and is dedicated to that, the glory of loafing, the pleasure of bumming around. After all if you couldn't frig around all day what else is there to do in the moments you happen to get for yourself? The only reason I have time is because of me, because I exist so why should most of it be spent for people I care nothing about and not on what I really want to? sounds narcissist ?? Well, it probably is.

I don't believe in altruism. It is sure a wonderful and glorious idea, the only slight hitch is that it works only when everyone has the same idea. Not one time in my knowledge has that ever happened; most social morals are like that. Human society isn’t integrated enough to work as single unit, and is not equipped to do so; some crude forms do exist though like in the military they are just that crude.

Group mind is just as marvelous and achingly impossible dream to achieve. I do want that more than anything .That doesn’t mean I m settling for anything less , society, culture ,relationships, marriage, love even can't substitute for that. Either will have it all or none at all .I don't want the crumbs when the whole damn cake is out there. If that means I have to be self centered, that’s just fine.

Green seemed just the color which fit the mood while I was designing so I guess that sticks. The design as such was just mechanical coding easily done while the mind pleasantly wanders around illogically thinking of what to “Write” .What got me really sweating was the title and the description .I m not creative and my hold over any language least of all English is tenuous at best, my ill disguised contempt for all forms of sensory communication is already quite evident and I have written here in a excellent soup of a article as it befits the topic. For the nth time I felt the lack of the words of expression which compounded by my ignorance of the medium made it quite difficult to think up an apt title.
Even after spending an hour it doesn't really satisfy me but it is best I could do and the dictionary too isn't much help. The sort of dictionary most times I and most people need is not expression of words but words of expression. If it was just for me or someone who really understood me the title would have been blank .There would have been need to tell anything ( I tried that ,unfortunately leaving that space blank isn't a option on blogger had to fill something which might as well have been something I meant ) Besides the whole point of this exercise of blogging is to be try to articulate what I think in the wild hope that maybe the language is indeed sufficient and I sorely lack the competency to use it for my purposes, views are subject to change after all. To assume something without testing is not only foolish but so patently idiotic that it isn't worth a mention.

The description seemed quite easy after the title. What is bath tub when you have just had swim in the sea? Again the dictionary failed me quite admirably, it showed my dozens of words I never had a clue existed for the simplest of concepts never what I wanted. The only reason I put with it is that maybe I will have use for one of those words someday somewhere. Nothing is really useless , that motto is quite dangerous ,it has filled my brain with junk I could do without ,hidden in that junk are nuggets of gold I do really want to know ,whether it is worth the price is a matter of perspective, I think it is. I couldn't think of a single description that would fit all that is here other than the obvious one that they are all works of mine, sometimes there is no choice but to state the obvious and to look stupid.

Never before I felt the need for punctuation ( the word brings me the memories of exercises I had to do wherein I had to fill up the missing symbols in the given text from the yesteryears of English learning at school- that’s the only times I used them consciously ) the only punctuation I use custom made "... "for all sorts of pauses I only use that that is attributed to practice of short messaging on a non qwerty keypad, the key for punctuation is only one you have to press repeatedly on it to get all the punctuation marks dot comes on the first press to save time and the keypad I use only "... " For all punctuation marks people understood too . They just put the appropriate one in their mind while reading, considering all the abbreviations used this is quite reasonable. That stuck here too , it is quite easy to write that way but to my disappointment the same people can't read this type of writing on a larger screen while they can on a small one, I made a conscious attempt to use the marks in this one although still might have some lingering effects.

I don’t know what I’m writing, so I’m stopping here; taking a break, until I’ll be back with something more concrete in the subject line.

Stay tuned.....