Things go wrong for good

One after another, two mishaps have affected the Malaysian Airlines badly. They are at the verge of delisting. Murphy’s law, what else? “If anything can go wrong, it will”. Extremely unfortunate and sad incidents, no good to anybody.

When something goes wrong at times, we will have those memories for ever. That is why the laws which support the philosophy of everything that goes right at most of the times, never became as popular as Murphy ’s Law. We assume that occurrences of those right things are granted.

But sometimes, even things which go wrong, can turn out to be for good.

Yes, I had studied for PU. In Sacred Hearts College, Thevara – a place on the way to Fort Kochi from Ernakulam town. The Sacred Hearts College was run by orthodox christian management, which never allowed two hearts to come that closer! For example, the beautiful, vast backyard of the college from which one can enjoy the beauty of the backwaters was banned for us to venture out – by bunking our classes or otherwise.

I was extremely happy with that new environment though. Not because that the number of subjects to be studied was reduced by 50%, I never had that worry as I was good in mugging up things that I didn’t understand! It was primarily because of the existence of plenty of girlfriends; it was a big relief for me even though I had to travel by train for an hour, 10 minutes’ by walk from railway station to the bus stop and another 20 minutes of “packed” journey by bus to reach the college. It was a quantum change in my life. Being in the “Boys only” school for many years, where the only proof of existence of women in that academic institution was our 55 year old headmistress, that too with a rude face, the college looked like a heaven for me. Nothing went wrong for me in that area.

My dad kept on reminding me of submitting the application to avail considerable discount in my huge annual fees which ran into 3 digits. I kept on postponing it till the last date, primarily to avoid facing those “non-user-friendly” clerical staff. Finally I dragged my feet to the office that evening, collected the necessary form, filled it up and submitted. Without looking at my face, the clerk declared “Father’s signature required”! I was stunned. How much ever quick the bus, train and myself ran, I could manage to get my dad’s signature only by next day, which would be of no use by then. I strongly believed in values even in those days, so I didn’t want to forge my dad’s signature either.

With a heavy heart as I was walking out to catch the bus, one more wrong thing happened. The bus came on right time, which was unusual. I missed the bus. Next bus from the college was much later, only option left for me was to walk to the main road for around 2 KM to catch any bus coming from Fort Kochi.  As I was pondering how to tackle my dad, one of my friends came from behind with full of enthusiasm – obviously he had to be - unlike me, he did not have any problem with his father or his signature. I told him my sad state of affairs. “Fool, they want the signature of the principal, not that of your father”, hearing this from him, I realised the fact the entire staff and students used to call the principal “Father”, who was also a priest. I ran back to college with all the energy left and managed to get the principal’s signature on time and submit the form. The wrong doing of that bus driver by arriving right in time saved  me and my father from a lot of trouble which would have caused by “another father”!

Don’t we see some things go wrong while we are in a tour? Let me narrate one to convince you that I had many. We were on a trip to Mangalore & Udupi to visit temples and beaches. I was driving my Maruti Omni, the car with an intelligent design – engine being under the driver’s seat. To make the driver always alert by keeping vital part of his body warm! Like any other South Indian I decided to have an authentic, original Udupi masala dosa from a restaurant in Udupi itself. When in Udupi, be "Udupian", right? I parked the car in front of a restaurant and we all had delicious dosas. All the lingering of the good taste vanished, as my mouth became totally dry once I noticed that car was locked keeping the key inside the car itself. I hadn’t opted for that sophisticated “key-less”, remote lock option which would have been an over-kill for the Omni. As I was wondering what to do next, then I heard something nice from my wife – “It is I only who locked the side sliding window this morning; it might not have been locked fully”. May be due to lack of strength, may be due to the fear that the window might get damaged, she never used to get it right and window was never properly got into the lock position. I used to scold her generously for the same. Yes, she was right in saying that she did it wrongly this time too, that window opened all doors for us! Now you can imagine what I had to hear from my wife for the next half hour of our journey, those right things at the wrong time !!

"Urvasi sapa upakara" - King Arjuna would have struggled to be in disguise during that one year after many years of exile in the forest if he hadn't got that curse from Urvasi. Becoming an eunuch temporarily for an year actually had become a boon for the King.

Once we friends, three of us were returning to Milwaukee from Chicago. I was sitting at the back enjoying the music and digesting the non-spicy Indian food which I overate from the much spicier Devon Street! Needless to say my friend was driving at high speed in the left most lane, totally  ignoring my plea to drive a bit slower in the right lane. Suddenly we heard a loud noise, the car on our right lane, a bit ahead of us had swirled to the right-most lane which was empty. Its "right" tyre had burst. Luckily, it was not the left one. Had it been the left one, that car would have come to our lane, our car would have rammed into that.  I am not sure what would have happened to those in that "swirled" car. I know for sure neither of my friends in the front would have survived then to even blog later about my premature death due to sudden, immense fear!

Let’s believe that nothing will go wrong today and in coming days. If at all something goes wrong, we have that poor Murphy and his law to blame. Then we can wish that wrong may actually lead to something good for us. If that wish also does not come true, we still have something called fate to blame for to move on.

There are “three” kinds of things in this world. Things which we know that can go right, things which we know that can go wrong!!!!

Have a great day. Have fun.