Coincidence

Generating a 1024 bit prime number was not easy now and was not easy then when I was in college. But it had to be solved as a part of my thesis work. Being one of the few guys without his own computer, I used to spend late hours all alone at my department lab. On one such night my glance fell on to the clock which showed 00:00 hrs, to the monitor on my right and my heart skipped a few beats. I saw something being typed endlessly on the screen line after line in black on a white background. That probably was the most scariest incident in my life.
A few hours before on the same day, as was the habit those days I had my dinner at 7:00pm and set to down to watch a movie in Vicky's room (or was it Pinku's). It was "The Shining" filed under Horror on IMDB with an 8.5 rating. This was a Stanley Kubrick direction, adapted from a Stephen King novel by the same name. In one particular scene Wendy, the protagonists wife discovers to her horror that her husband who was supposed to be writing a novel, does no such thing. He had been typing endlessly on reams of papers in different fonts only one thing, and it also happened to be the same thing I saw that night on the monitor next to me.

All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull Boy.

It scared the shit out of me for a few moments. It took me a little time to collect my thoughts, I don't remember what happened next but I can never forget what I went through  in those few seconds.

Call it coincidence, call it chance, call it accident or what ever you want, such incidents both pleasant and not so pleasant have been pretty common all my life. I am listing down a few over here:

• I read the book Apocalypse Watch and the evening I finished reading it, I saw the movie on one of the TV channels.
• I had a very good friend in school in class 6th. I haven't spoken to him for over 18years. And when I spoke with him yesterday, we realize there are so many people in common that we  both know, and we never chanced to cross our paths.
• One fine day I decide firmly that to run a Marathon, and two days later I met Gul who happened to start Greater Bangalore Hash and played a significant role in me running my first full Marathon.
• I met Pavani Diwanji in my short stint at Nirmalabs. She talked about her startup experience and how important the co-founder was. Four years later in Bangalore on a different forum I met Freeman Murray who talked about the same topic. And no points for guessing they were co-founders of Kendara which was acquired by Excite@Home.

These are but just a few random events from my life and there are many more such events which leave me pondering:

Was it just a coincidence or Was it always meant to be so.

Do let me know of any such instances in your life.



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