Serendipity

Twenty years back, I was dating a colleague of mine while working for a Bank in Delhi.  The context of dating was much different in those days, no mobile phones, no texting, and no whatsapp. I am really wondering, despite such a limitation of communication channels, the intensity of relationship was no lesser.

One summer morning, she was informed that there was an urgent training on a new software and that she had to travel to Bangalore for 3 days immediately. Those days, the only airline was Indian Airlines – with very limited capacity to serve only the elite, there was no ‘Tatkal’ in trains either. The bookings in summer holidays were done 60 days in advance.

So, there she was, completely confused. She did not want to lose this opportunity but had never traveled alone. With some patronage, she could get an exception approval for one-way onward air travel. So, she haggled with a local travel agent, who got her only a second class return ticket by train. But the thought of traveling two days on a second class train trip in the heat of May was beyond her comfort.

As it happens during any courtship, I was overly concerned and wanted to do anything to ease her distress. The cost of flying was beyond my means so I too caught hold of an agent and managed a waitlisted second class train ticket to Hyderabad and then took an overnight bus to Bangalore to be able to reach just before the return trip.  We did not have the fleet of Volvo buses that we see now and I was pure lucky to have got one last seat in a Government bus from Hyderabad to Bangalore.

In those days, such dates and affairs were always kept under wraps.  Therefore, though I had friends in the same office, I could not have gone to the office. But I could send across the message through a common local friend, assuring her of my arrival.

As our tickets were booked separately, she was in coach S-2 and I got my seat in coach S-8. We were wondering how we will make it work with 6 coaches and a pantry car between us.  As we settled down in our respective seats, one gentleman approached me with a request. They were two persons traveling together but had their seats allotted in two different coaches – one in S-2 and the other in S-8. This was a God-sent moment for me and I was thrilled with ecstasy.  So, I obliged the gentleman and moved to coach S-2 thanking this fortunate stroke of serendipity.

Now that colleague is my wife for 20 years and whenever we have some low moments, we remember those small Godly interventions and start believing in what Paulo Coelho expressed beautifully in ‘The Alchemist’ and later Shahrukh Khan rendered it romantically in one of his blockbusters - When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.