Does Luck matter ?

  Discussions on Luck is one of those areas which is subjective in nature and it differs from person to person. I would like to go over some examples I have observed and give my perspective on Luck. Luck knowingly or unknowingly would have played a role in one's life which we may not have realized. Sometimes outcome of a cricket match is decided by Toss and we call the captain lucky to have got his toss right. When you are about to step inside an examination hall or attend a Job interview many would wish you 'Best of luck' and few 'All the very best'. Google defines 'Luck' as success that happens by chance. Now let us look into few examples

9/11 lucky fellas: 9/11 is one day no one can easily forget what happened in New York, one of those deadliest terrorist attacks which took away close to 3000 lives. There are few lucky guys who escaped and one of them was called George Keith who drove his brand new BMV on Sept 10,2001 and got it repaired. He got an appointment next day Sept 11,2001 at 7am with hopes of returning to work at 8am but the mechanics refused to work till 8 am and it took them just three minutes to fix the car and by the time the car was fixed and George was rushing back to work plane already crashed WTC, the place where he was heading for work. Kim John-Burns was another person who was three months pregnant and instead of having breakfast with her colleagues at Company's canteen @ 72nd floor she was lazy and decided to have quick breakfast at sixth floor canteen. She said this decision saved her life. In both the cases had the mechanics come earlier or Kim decided to have breakfast at 72nd floor it would have ended both their lives. 

Home price and Luck factor: There is a system in place to fix a price of a house in US and factors such as Schools, proximity to malls, highways, airports, train stations, crime ratio, foreclosures, neighborhood sales determine to fix a price of a house. House is sent for appraisal and appraiser comes up with a value of the house. Assume one particular house comes for sale and the house is pretty red hot in the market since it has way too many advantages. Unfortunately the couple who own the house are planning to end their relation and heading towards divorce, they want to quickly close the deal and willing to settle for lot lesser. Their aim is to part ways sooner by expediting the settlement process. Guy who buys the house gets a good deal but the sad part are the neighbors who are planning to sell their houses. Couple's personal matters which has got nothing to do with the market trend pretty much skews the price and brings down the value of neighborhood homes by some extent. 

MK Stalin and Luck factor: MK Stalin has been in public life for 40-45 years and had to wait a very long time before he became chief minister of the state. He had every thing to his advantage - son of one of India's senior politician, political heir of Karunanidhi, MLA multiple times, Mayor of chennai, Opposition party leader, Minister of Rural development etc., Now state is witnessing one of the best governance in its history and though it is way to early to comment on the government but the news from all round the state is he is doing a wonderful job as CM of the state. Until Karunanidhi was alive he was always 'Thunai Mudhalamaichar' and he carried that tag for a long time and he was insulted many times from many different people and people always felt Stalin will never be the CM of the state. When it comes to qualification I don't believe there is any better person than Stalin since he has come from very basic levels and slowly climbed up the ladder. He was also president of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and as a Mayor he was instrumental in significant growth of Chennai city. Having everything in his kitty still he had to wait till his chance finally came up in 2021 (he was 68 when he took over as CM). People like EPS took the coveted post from nowhere but luck never favored Stalin. 

Luck and Cinema: Since my last blog was on Apples vs Oranges, I want to make sure I pick examples from similar background. Sivakarthikeyan and Actor Prasanna both had humble background and both hail from Trichy and one made it big in Kollywood whereas other is not able to make a mark. If you take Sivakarthikeyan, Vijay TV was his trump card and he capitalized on Family audience particularly women and kids and translated into Box office successes by picking simple and commercial scripts suiting his image. Most of Sivakarthikeyan's movies would be average but they tasted success. Actor Prasanna is pretty good looking and his movies like Kasturi maan and Kanda naal mudhal are decent ones and his acting was good too. Unfortunately he didn't have anyone to groom and with lack of glossy factors like Anirudh's music he couldn't make it big and move on to next level. Actor Rahman is absolutely dashing and acts well but he is better known as AR Rahman's co-brother; If Ilayaraja has endorsed someone then I don't think anything can get better than that but still Karthik Raja couldn't make it big on Kollywood. I love his music in Ullasam, Dum Dum Dum, Ullam Kollai Poguthae etc., I feel Actor Prasanna, Rahman, Music director Karthik Raja all were unlucky. What would you call Mike Mohan ? There was times where many of his movies were superhits and thanks to Raja sir music and SPB voice which fitted him very well and he himself said in an interview that he was at the right place at the right time. 

As you can see Luck plays a role in one's life. It would not be wise to say that one has to rely on luck to grow further but all it takes is some luck to push you attain greater heights. If India has crappy reservation system which favors some castes on education/jobs then US has crappy Immigration system which overlooks deserving candidates thereby favoring individuals based on nationality. But if you are at the right place at the right time then even these so called crappy systems can do a huge favor. 

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