Bingo !!

I was relieved yesterday. Fifteenth Loksabha ended forever. No more chaos, no more fights. Atleast for another few months.

I am relieved much more today. I tried to do as much I could do by last evening, but could not. I tried to eat as much as I could, but could not. I was worried by night. “Kal ho na ho?” End of the world predicted for Feb 22^nd Saturday with epic battle between Norse gods Thor, Loki, Odin, Freyr and Hermóðr as per Viking apocalypse. I had heard these types of predictions earlier. I am sure I would hear those in future too. But I was a little worried.

This morning when I woke up first thing I did was login into FaceBook. Yes, people as usual are still posting selfies, veg/non-veg jokes, sharing interesting pictures and stories and “liking” other's posts. Yes, world did not end. I was lucky, we are all lucky that it didn’t happen.

Luck – whether it is good or bad will be remembered for ever.

“Bingo” I shouted sitting in the car. Why? For what?

It was a rainy day. As I started driving home from office with my friends Naveen and Sid Shah, we realized that the Hosur road was fully blocked. Water logging, nothing new in those days. One of them suggested that we should take the central jail road who was more familiar with the road but not the jail per say.  Though that road was narrow, I took that diversion to reach faster, as I knew the traffic would be less. As I drove a few KMs, we saw a huge jam there as well. It would mean we have to wait for an hour at least. We were so unlucky; we could have continued on Hosur Road and reached faster.

What else to do, I increased the volume of FM 104, Radio fever! I saw Sid typing some sms. He was responding to a game played on the air. It was a game where a counter will randomly keep on telling a number starting from 1 to 10 lakhs. It could be like 10, 150, 3000, 6005, 150100, 800000 like that, purely at random. The person who calls in should shout “Bingo” anywhere in between as he wishes. He will get that much money which the counter just announced, eg: if one shouts when the counter tells 150100, then the counter will stop and the person will get that much money. There is a catch though. There is an inside alarm set again at random which can pronounce “Bingo” by itself during this journey from 1 to lakhs. If that happens, before you shout Bingo, the counter will stop again, but you get nothing!

I also sent my sms, as nothing else to do. Naveen too did send sms. We forgot about that, traffic started moving, I crawled and reached Marathahalli. Guess what ? I am getting a call from RJ Rajesh from FM 104 ! He says, I am selected for this game and he would call me back in 5 minutes to start the game. I could not believe my luck. I did get a call after five minutes. The counter started 12, 350…and reached 26000+( twenty six thousand + only !). I decided enough is enough. That is why I shouted “Bingo” for that money, sitting in the car. Just to let me know RJ continued the counter and the”Bingo” inside alarm went at 40000+ ( forty thousand+ only). I felt luckier, I would have felt otherwise had it touched 10 Lakhs !!!! As promised to RJ, I threw a party to some of my friends at “Legends of Rock” at Koramangala. We had a rocking time, those who did not get my invite, my apologies first, then it’s your bad luck – I hadn’t won 10 lakhs that day !!!!

Bad luck turns to good luck, it can happen other way round too.

During my visit to Leeds, UK at a customer location I had a one-on-one meeting with my team members at onsite. Deepika, she had received excellent feedback from customer for her work. She was extremely hardworking, sound in the finance domain and technology. She said to me “I am happy here. But I am not as lucky as my friends. They all are in the US. I also want to go there. I need the immediate next chance. Help me with that”. I gave her all good fundas on Leeds - small country town, old and ethnic look, peaceful, lots of greenery, etc  etc. I also gave her all “not so good” fundas on US, mugging, shooting, fast paced down towns, lots of coke, pizza etc. Just to see whether she might change her mind, knowing fully that both places are equally good. I told her to continue for the next six months as promised to the customer. She honored that. When she returned to India, I immediately transferred her to a US based customer account. Last I heard from her was two months after that, she had sent me an email informing that she would be flying to NY that weekend. I never ever thought that she would be one of the four missing from our organization in the 9/11 incident. Extremely sad. She was so unlucky. I sincerely hope that she is just missing and she is still alive somewhere.

Let me loosen up myself little bit, “jo honaa hey, woh ho jaata hey”, it happens which has to happen. Now I will tell about a prisoner. It is a joke shared by somebody. The prisoner was  sentenced to death. The King asks him “Do you have any last wish?”. He tells “Is there any way I cannot be hanged?”. The King replies “I will give you one month’s time. If you can make those horses outside fly, then I will order not to hang you!”  Prisoner readily agrees.

Seeing the prisoner relaxed, other inmates ask him “are you mad ? you will be hanged anyway after a month. How do you think you can make those horses fly”? Prisoner replies – “ In one month’s time many things can happen. If I am lucky, I will die naturally in the prison itself. If I am luckier, the king himself may die. If either of these two things does not happen, still there is a hope. If I am the luckiest, those horses might start flying themselves! Who knows?”

When one is optimistic, he always thinks that good luck will be on his side.

When your friend by his smart work and brilliance achieves much more than you, then you tend to console yourself – he was extremely lucky. When you get sidelined for your lack of interest as you are not focused, you again try to console yourself - My bad luck!

One can be lucky or unlucky, but one cannot run away from his duties to be successful!