Sometimes some things are destined to happen! I believe in miracles but sometimes some things happen in such a way that you feel there is a third party planning all this.
You know for example, a few weeks back early morning I was preparing for an important meeting with one of our advisors. The meeting was scheduled at 11 A.M. and I left home at 9:30 A.M. to give me sometime to work out on some documents at the office. But when I reached there and opened the flap of my laptop, to my horror, the laptop screen had a huge black spot on it and a crack running through the whole screen. Apparently, I forgot my earphones between the flaps and closed the flap, which caused the crack.
For a moment, I was very disappointed at my luck and fearing how huge a bomb it might cost me to get it repaired. I wasn't earning then, I aint earning a single penny now, so it was quite a shock. I quickly recuperated and got the essential documents I needed for the meeting printed out from the e-mail attachments I had sent out. The meeting went well.
Following the meeting, I called up Sony Vaio Service centre to know the potential lost it has caused me. They told me a visiting charge of Rs 1000 and a screen replacement charge of approx Rs 17000(gulp!). I was feeling so very screwed, for paying such a huge penalty for a seemingly small mistake of forgetting my earphones between the flap. I just casually asked the office wardboy, if the computer guy at IIM can repair it(trying to console myself although I knew the answer!). I took his number and called him to know what can be done.
After a day, he quoted me a price of Rs 8,500 for a non-sony screen, which I readily accepted after some hard negotiation bringing the cost to Rs 8000. Subsequently, I had to give away my laptop for repairing.
During these days, I used to sit in the computer centre at IIM. One day, I was sitting alone in the centre, when a gentleman arrived. Surprisingly, computer centres at IIM remain empty as compared to 60-70% occupancy rate back at IIT.
He came here for some computer related troubleshooting and as no-one was there, he asked me where the computer guy was. I said he'll be here in sometime and that you might like to wait. So, he started talking and we introduced ourselves. He told me he was working in the army as a strategist for 8 years, after which he worked in a consultancy firm as a managing partner and now was doing an MBA. The guy was good in strategy as well as quality processes( black-belt in Six Sigma). When I discussed my plans and told I was from IITG, he found them interesting and after some more time, he got his computer repaired and we said our goodbyes. One day, after a week or so, I was returning from office at about 10:30 in the night. I found him on a post-dinner walk enjoying the breeze. I recognised him and told him about the progress I made. He asked me for my business plan to give me better advise to which I said that I was looking for someone who could help me write one! He readily agreed. A few meetings with him have been good so far and his advices certainly add that 360 perspective to my thinking, in addition to the motivation he provides.
None of this would've ever happened, if I hadn't forgotten those earphones that day. Probably Rs 8000 is too low a fee for a great consultancy.
Second incident happened today, when again I came to computer lab to get my laptop formatted as I was fed up of vista. Instead of a simple windows xp installation, my laptop being the super-smart laptop that it is didn't function as normal laptops do. It instead didn't detect the installation CD and on further tweaking with the settings and all, somehow a critical file got deleted which resulted in its logging off as soon as it logs on. This happened at 8:30PM at which time I had to go to office for a conference call happening between three continents( California, Norway and Ahmedabad). Later the computer guy came back asking me to give him my laptop for the night and that I use the computer centre for tonight.
Again, in a twist of destiny, I was alone there and a guy came. he was looking for printout and matter-of-factly didn't have A4 papers. As fate would have it, he asked me for help to which I suggested to look for at the reception or the placement office which remain open till late in the night. He got the papers from the reception and came back to thank me. He then introduced himself, as a gesture of good attiquette. He said he was a Columbia graduate in Economics policy and was working in Clean Energy infrastructure finance projects and was associated with the second-largest bank in Japan for last 8 years. What could be better? Meeting a person with a policy and finance background and that too in clean energy. He heard my plans and agreed to give me a helping hand and asked me to send him a financial model. I would've never met him had my laptop had a successfull installation or if I hadn't come to the computer centre or came at a different time.
Sometimes things just happen. And as long as the results are good, all is well.
