Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.....

Presenting a real life story to prove the quotation of the title of this post.

Sep 2002:
The yearly flagship event of Indore Management Association "All India Brand Guru Quiz" took place. Top B-schools/Engg. Colleges & Corporate houses battled this highly entertaining quiz event, based on the lines of Economic Times Brand Equity Quiz and TATA Crucible, for some high profile prizes. The dynamic Harish Bijoor being the quiz master.
We heard of this event in the college and went to witness the show. In fact, what prompted us to go for the show was the prize for the most whackily dressed up person in the audience. We had painted our faces with tri-colors, et all and two of my friends actually won that prize. :p
On a serious note, my quiz freak classmate realised that if prepared well this can be cracked easily. We both decided to have a go for this quiz the next year and started preparation for the it straighaway.

Sep 2003:
The announcement of the next edition of the Brand Guru Quiz had come and we straightaway registered ourselves for it. This was my final year in engineering and the placement season was going to start soon with "Asia's No.1 Software Company" decided to visit the campus for a day after this quiz. But we were more excited about this quiz than the job, may be because this time the co-host of the show was going to be Mandira Bedi !

In all 70 college teams and 30 corporate teams took part. Our aim was to get in top 3 of the college teams and then compete with the top 3 companies in the Grand Finale. Some of the colleges were IIML, IIMI, MICA, NIRMA, ICFAI, International Business School, IIPS, etc. and some of the corporates being TCS, Bennet Coleman & Co Ltd, L&T, HDFC, ICICI, Eicher, CSC, JP Morgan Chase, Hindustan Times, GAIL, Airtel, et all....
Did I say our aim was to come in top 6 for the Grand Finale !! ;)

The crossword prelims started and we had totally cracked it.
We cleared each hurdle and reached the top 3 ..defeating IIMI as well... yaaaaaay!! :)

The final six included IIML, IIPS, TCS, TOI, CSC and IET (my college)

As I told before, TCS campus placement was gonna happen a day after this finale... and we both had this gut feeling that surely these TCS quizzers are going to come to the college for the same.
When we approached them for the same, they diplomatically sent us away saying,
"A new team from Mumbai is going to fly down for it.. we are here only for quizzing".
All our efforts to impress them seemed to go in vain. :(

Anyways, lets get back to the finale.... a very enthralling stage round.
As it happens on stage, the team sitting next to you decides your future and in our case IIML sat on our left hand side and blocked almost all the pass questions.. grrrrr! :(
TCS was playing brilliantly and it was a close fight between TCS and IIML for the top 2 spots.
Finally, IIML cleaned up TCS for the first prize of an Acer Laptop each and both the TCSers won themselves a Royal Enfield Motorcycle each. Wow !!
We finished fourth, ahead of CSC and TOI, winning an LG Double Door Refrigerator each. :)

Finally we congratulated the teams and parted. Gosh, we had campus interview a day after !

My quiz freak friend was not interested in taking up any IT job so he refrained from the campus interviews.. But I sat for it and cleared the three initial online rounds and went to face the first interview. Out of the six panels, I was randomly sent in one of them.... as soon as I entered the room I was shocked to see the sight!
One of the last night's TCS winner was sitting on the other side of the table !
I was glad that she rememberd me and was even pleasantly surprised when she said, "So, you were my competitor last night and now shall become in the company as well!".

I sailed through the rest of the process and got a final selection letter. :))
It has been 21 months in this company and I have enjoyed every moment of IT!

So then, what do u say... "Am I lucky ?"

PS: Updates about the characters of this post ->
Apr 2006:
1) My quiz freak friend... he did not appear for any campus interview intially and got selected in IIT D for MBA course. He appeared for the same quiz in Oct 2004 as well and again won a refrigerator! He is going to finish his MBA this year and will join Infosys! :)
2) My TCS Quizzers: I am in contact with them... Both of them have been in TCS London from a very long time... I am one of the core members of the soon to be launched "TCS Mumbai Quiz Club" and shall continue this fever.
3) The IIML fellow who won the Acer laptop, went on to join SBI after passing out and won the Brand Equity Quiz of 2005.