Lucky Hands

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My son tells me that there was a toss-fiasco in the World Cup Finals yesterday, but despite proven ineptitude of the Toss Referee and possible guile of the Sri Lanka Captain, India romped home.

Like Kapil earlier, Dhoni proved a lucky captain.

Despite everything, luck plays an enormous role in every enterprise, big or small. One has only to look back on one's past to be convinced of it.

Young Varun, with hardly a couple of knowing decades under his belt (compared to my 6.5) says:

"....I regret not having taken his kind support in my applications. But by God's grace, I have gotten by..."

Dame Luck plays a decisive role not only in toss but also in subsequent play like Maradonna's celebrated Hand of God.

...Not only in Field Games, but in the biggest games called Battles & Wars between Nations.

Britain was certainly the Fond Child of Luck in the Second World War...everything was going against her so transparently that none would bet on her to win it.

Take for instance Dunkirk in which she was doled an astonishing ten or more days by Hitler to safely evacuate more than half a million stranded soldiers by fishing boats when all of them could have been easily killed or captured.

Or the Battle of Britain; or Monty's El Alamein.

Contrast this with Yahya's Bangladesh War where over 90,000 well-fed, well-armed and well-entrenched troops surrendered without a shot and raised Manekshaw to FM.

I read recently that an Army Major or someone like that was referred for promotion to the top post and the only question Napoleon asked was:

"Is he lucky?"

During my 4-decade stint at KGP, I was the lucky hand everywhere and I knew it.

I was the Senior Teacher @ KGP dumped with the New Physics Jumbo Course a few years before my retirement.

With Prof RSS as my co-teacher, we did a fairly good job. Then unfortunately RSS passed away. During his cremation where many of his colleagues were present, Prof AK sat beside me and remarked sympathetically:

"The right hand of gps has been cut off"

I then said:

"gps is like the Demon Raktabija:

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....After nine days of fighting, during which Mahishasura's army was decimated, she finally killed him on the tenth day of the waxing moon. Durga is therefore called Mahishasuramardini (literally the slayer of the buffalo demon), the destroyer of Mahishasura. During several battles, she appears in her incarnation of Kali; particularly while fighting Raktabija, who has the magic boon that every drop of blood falling from him to the ground will become another Raktabija (literally the blood borne). Here Kali spreads her giant tongue and drinks up all the blood before it falls to the earth....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahishasura

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For, I had already booked KK @ ISI, Cal, to be my new right hand"

And what a wonderful right hand KK was; and is!

And my son follows suit...at every critical juncture in his career (touch mahogany-teak-wood!) something lucky turns up for him at the last moment.

My Father used to seat me on his belly after night meals and tell me one story or the other during my childhood.

One such I recall clearly was about a naughty kid K (I forgot his name) who had this prank of stealing his Rishi-Father's metal idols and salegramas (holy stones) and hurling them down in the well and gleefully listen to the dub-dub sound when they sink.

Fed up with his daily task of jumping into the well and retrieving them, his father curses him:

"May everything you throw in water float!"

And my Father, with tears in his throat used to tell me that Sri Raam (my Father's Idol) had to summon the kid K and seek his help in throwing the stones brought in by his monkey-warriors into the Sea to build his pontoon bridge to Sri Lanka which was defeated roundly yesternight by Dhoni & Co...

Moral: Subterfuge never wins in the long run

The other day we moved from a mezzanine floor apartment to one on the 13th floor, a steep upliftment.

Ishani is still busy finding her naughty ways.

Earlier it was her famous prank to fetch spoons and ladles from the kitchen and hurl them down gleefully and my task to run down and fetch them back before they are lost.

Now we have a wonderful balcony in our 13th floor with vertical columns with spaces between them. I am sure she will discover them in another week and play the same hurling game...and it won't be easy for me to run down in the precarious elevator every time she comes to me and shows where exactly they landed.

Perhaps I have to boon her:

"May everything you throw down stay put in the air!"

I read long back that G H Wells (?) thought up a way to go to the Moon by removing the cover of an anti-gravity zone.

Our balcony is just about the height of the Tower of Pisa.

But I am as usual too late...Galileo (bless his soul!) had already carried out his famous experiment about 400 years back....

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