When Destiny Sends Its Helpers

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Keep running. The right people find you on the way. At different stages of life, you’re confronted with different challenges. And each time you cross a hurdle, you feel that familiar sense of accomplishment. It’s tempting to attribute that success to your own skill, tenacity, and willpower — to pat yourself on the back and feel proud of how you handled it. But when you zoom out and look at the moments where you somehow managed to trump the odds, a quieter realization sets in: It’s never just you. There is always an unseen army that shows up at the right time. It was 2005. I had decided to pursue my Master’s in the US. I picked a few schools in the Midwest where the expenses were manageable, and that’s how the University of Missouri–Rolla entered the picture. But funding was still a massive question mark. I hadn’t secured any assistantship, and we didn’t have the means to pay out of pocket. We went from bank to bank, hoping for an education loan. Each manager aske...
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All that glitters is white

This forms the main ingredient of my sunday once in two weeks. Taking my laundry bag and walking upto a mile to wash my clothes at MOBIL is undoubtedly the most painful experience of the fortnight. Imagine doing this on a wintry afternoon at sub-zero temperatures. The pain would start two days before actually doing the laundry. The most common feeling would be - Oh No! Not again! The next obvious question would prop up almost at the next nano second - How I wish I had a car! Sadly though, student life does not yield handsome income, and we have to make do with what we have. But, this is definitely a much better situation to be in than washing it on your own. That would have been even more frustrating. No wonder I can imagine most of the hostel guys to wear the same old clothes for a long period of time. The colour fades to different shades, the original colour is lost by not washing it at all, and the brown tinge adds a totally new stinking sensation to your clothes. Most of them would dread to go near the hostel guy fearing a bad outcome. No wonder, fellow hostel guys flock together, and only a hostel guy can understand a fellow hostel guy's situation. Thankfully, here, all these things can be avoided.

The machines at MOBIL are just great. Pop in 2$ in quarters, come back in half an hour, and your clothes are washed to a nicety. I get reminded of the Rin advertisement back in India, where a beautiful lady is draped in a lightning white saree. The freshness associated with the clothes, thanks to the softener, brings a nice feeling to the senses. After this, the dryer is filled with the washed clothes, and post heavy turbulence for about 25 minutes, out emerges the clothes, as if it was hanging in your courtyard the whole day. I am ready to bask in the glory of washed clothes for two weeks.

Two weeks later...

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