Disclaimer: Those who read this please read it without any bias. I am trying to present some real life incidents which made me believe that nothing is so powerful and potent as ‘destiny’ or ‘luck’.

During my time of job search in 70s it was a tough affair; I passed out Engineering in First Class but just with 65 percentages of marks. Since I could not land on any job for one year I joined post graduation for two basic reasons; 1. I will get a monthly stipend of Rs. 250 for 2 years and 2. It will keep me busy in some way because I have to study. I completed my post graduation too with 74.5 percentages but to no avail. Probably, a few interviews I attended after several applications were neither to my satisfaction nor to theirs; because my English communication skill wasn’t that good and they expected me to remember from Boyle’s Law to the Techniques of Marketing. So again I need to wait and luckily I joined a research laboratory on a three year contract. It took another six years for me to get a permanent posting there after crossing several odds posed by many ‘top most brains’ in science and technology.

My job varied from pilot plant studies to teaching students chemistry for a particular product industry. By that time many of my classmates who were bright and rich enough to write GRE, TOEFL and got admissions in the USA and migrated never to return. Those who stayed back in India joined some private industries and please hold your breath, even in banks; one guy as officer and the another one as clerk. I am sharing this because not a rosy picture of employment in those ‘good old days’ like now.

Well, I have been watching since the induction of computers and software, there was a mad, mad race to enter IT by everyone including doctors at one point of time. Amazingly, (even today it makes me feel ‘awesome’ to express it in the present day jargon) the computer field or IT whatever, absorbed lakhs and thousands of youngsters like a blotting paper absorbing the ink.

Still it does.

Well, here the IQ or academics seems to be secondary; the primary qualification must the boy or girl’s ‘destiny’ or ‘luck’. Because, I find many of my very intelligent, intelligent, average to dull students are working in the various parts of the world in the field of IT. I am fully confident and convinced that their academic qualifications had hardly anything to do with their positions, work and their salaries. An agriculturist’s son has settled in Seattle, USA. A carpenter’s ward works as an IT professional in a multinational. A state government’s clerk’s daughter has settled in UK. Why go on? Almost every family in South India has someone working either in IT in India or abroad, may be even in a not so famous country like Papau New Guinea. The whole world knows a middle class family’s ward from an ordinary background is the CEO of one of the leading multinational! But, please check with them the basic qualification they had; you will be surprised it had nothing to do with their field or degree or their marks or even their communication skills.

As a senior citizen I am pleased that several youngsters have better opportunities than before within or outside the country. Nevertheless, I think it is stupid to correlate their success or position to their academics. It would be wise for us to connect it with what I have mentioned first: ‘destiny’ or ‘luck’.

We can substantiate our arguments later with some ‘if’s and ‘but’s.