Serendipity

I am a layperson. Have always been one of those average intelligent 

types with no apparent misgivings about the extent of their insight. 

But I think today I might have landed myself a jackpot of 

sorts......or maybe of thoughts.

My tryst with serendipity is not 'breaking news' material but is sure 

worth a few minutes of pondering over when you have nothing better to 

do. I think I’ve chanced upon the one big reason behind a majority of 

problems in our world today. And my biggest helper in this discovery 

is our good old Met Department. It all started with my quest for a 

term they are as liberal in using as US is with its economy. And it 

is a term I absolutely understand nothing about. Call me ignorance 

personified if you will, but pray, what on earth do we mean by

'Western Disturbances'?

Last year when January passed in Delhi without so much as a drop of rain,

the western disturbances were to blame. And when February experienced this

freak outpour of felines and canines, the culprit was again the incorrigible western disturbances.

We hear them say it all the time, as a reason for everything - from 

drought to rain and from thunder to hailstorm. And the meaning of it 

neatly escapes me each time, no matter how agile and prepared I am 

to catch it. So much so that it set me thinking if there was 

something more to this innocuous sounding demon of a phrase than just 

freak weather. And then it dawned upon me that it was actually the 

numero uno when it came to culprits in the world.

Who's causing innumerable innocent deaths in Iraq everyday ...I 

asked a friend over lunch?....Er....":US & Britain ?" ...she 

replied, not quite sure how Iraq figured vis-a-vis the chinese meal. 

Well..broadly ?...I prompted further. "The West"..she replied. 

Hmmm...."Western Disturbances", I mumbled.

The TV news in the evening lamented about the sudden plunge of the 

Mumbai Stock Exchange...and down with it went some hard earned money 

we had invested. Well ?..what are you thinking fellas ?...where is 

mumbai after all ? - Western Disturbances striking our lives again !!

I figured.. a little bit of lateral thinking and we could safely 

attribute most of the prevailing ills...from Mulayam Sigh Yadav's 

nightmares caused by a village called Nithari in the west of Uttar 

Pradesh, to my grandmother worrying endlessly about how the 

cultureless west has eroded our values, ....to ..well...Western 

Disturbances. The term simply glides in and fits like a glove in any 

scheme of things..and reigns supreme when it comes to creating havoc.

The TV news is on again. It snowed heavily in Shimla last night, 

unprecedented for this time of the year. Some expert with a blue tie 

and a perpetual grim look is in the channel's studios for an 

analysis. I know the answer even before he begins. "Western 

Disturbances...." he starts.

I smile.