The 'Murphy' Prize

Several years ago, either by divine providence or by sheer fluke, an a$$h@#% named Murphy chanced upon a theory which, in my case at least, turned out to be as true and exact as Newton’s law of gravitation. Every time I plan a trip, Mr Murphy pops up from somewhere throwing unforeseen obstacles onto my path leading me to either cancel my trip or have a real bumpy ride (disclaimer: this has nothing to do with a snazzy rapper from Kollam).

Mr. Murphy was very much on my mind as I prepared to leave for London for an onsite assignment from Infosys. “Surely things couldn’t go wrong this time”, I thought. I was wrong!!

‘Surely’ is not a word that Mr. Murphy is familiar with. The least possible thing is the most probable, says Murphy.

The day before my journey, I was running around my office trying to get all the papers sorted for the trip. I was literally dashing towards the travel desk, when I realized (to my absolute horror) that my Passport was missing from the file folder that I was carrying. I was dumbstruck. Here I was, traveling to UK for the first time, getting the project code etc. sorted out just in time by my PM for the journey, only to end up losing my passport at the eleventh hour and cancelling my trip. I felt like killing myself. There was no way I could explain this to my PM and others. Suicide seemed to be a much better option.

Mr. Murphy was at it again. The guy is an absolute bastard but he sure is imaginative. Yet another improbable yet so magnificently creative obstacle confronted me.

I ran back to my building retracing my path. Then I saw a group of people hunched over looking at something. I rushed over to them and sure enough, one guy was holding a passport. ‘That’s mine’ I said. ‘Narendrakumar??’ he asked. ‘Yup, that’s me’ I blurted out, giving him a sheepish smile. The guy said he had found my Passport on the road adjacent to my building. I thanked him.

God had come to my rescue in the form of a fellow infoscion. Now that’s one guy Murphy can’t touch. Thank you, God!!!

As I hurried to the travel desk (this time clutching the passport as if my life depended on it and glancing at it time n again to make sure it hadn’t fallen off), the guy at the counter told me they had hit some trouble with the e-ticket booking system. Apparently, some system error was not allowing them to print the ticket from the website. He asked me to come at 4.30 in the evening. I had planned to leave the office at 3, do some last minute shopping, relax a bit and report to the airport by 12 (my flight was at 3 in the morning). So much for the relaxation part.

I collected my ticket at 4.30, boarded a BMTC Volvo and reached home around 6. From then on it was a mad scramble to get all the things which my friends had asked me to bring from India, packing and repacking to get the luggage to somewhere near the permitted 30 kilos.


Surely Mr. Murphy must be a satisfied man. Naaaah………..

I had to report by 12, so we would start at 11 and drive to the airport in Sajay’s car. We would reach there with lots of time to spare and have our wonted cold coffee from CCD.

I was a rainy night. Bangalore seemed to be weeping at my departure. In fact, it’d been weeping for the past 3 days. Talk about missing ur favourite son :D!!

Promptly at 11, I lined up all the luggage at the door while Sajay went to start his car. Next thing I remember is the relentless high pitched shriek of Autocop. Sajay called to me to get the other key of his car. I ran to his bedroom, fetched his key and gave it to him. He tried it once and said it was not working. One glance at his face and I knew it was bad.

By now the shriek of the autocop was getting near intolerable. Sajay unlocked the car somehow and he and Joch tried a variety of things, but the shriek continued unrelenting. Even the neighbours were up now and the ammavan who lives one floor above us told us to pull the plug to the battery. Sajay dug up a spanner from somewhere and unplugged the battery. Promptly, the shrieking stopped.

It was almost 11.20 now and we were no closer to the Airport. Sajay was all drenched now and evidently in a lot of pain. We knew that there was no way we could take the car. We had to call a taxi.

None of us had a call taxi number so I called up Rajeevettan and got a citi taxi number. Sajay called them up and arranged for a taxi..They said they’d get a taxi to come to hsr in 10 minutes.

The cab turned up around 11.40 PM. With the help of Joch, we quickly loaded up the baggage in the boot and headed for the airport.

We reached the airport at around 12.15 and sure enough, there was a huge queue in front of the entrance. Again Joch came to my rescue, finding a short cut and herding me through the traffic to the entrance.

The guy at the check in counter told me that the baggage was over weight. I told him that I was an Infosys employee and there was a provision for us to carry more luggage. The guy glanced at the screen and there was indeed a message to allow 10 kgs more luggage for infy employees. So I cleared ‘check in’ with this slight hitch.

As I waved goodbye to Sajay and Joch (poor guys had stayed back till I finished my check in procedure) and left weepy Bangalore for sunny London, I couldn’t help but look back on the day’s events. I had managed to pull through on most occasions but Mr Murphy just had to have the last laugh. Newton, Einstein, Edison et al, this guy simply puts you to shame. The guy is so omnipotent and his law so universal that he surely deserves a Nobel prize. Or is there a case for the Nobel prize to be renamed? You never know, the impossible is the most probable… Dare to disagree???