Serendipity — Prerna’s Baggage to Oxford
We asked our scholars to go back to the moment they packed their luggage in preparation for their journey to Oxford. But instead of clothes and books, we asked them to think about the stories, people, memories, hopes, and all immaterial things that they would put inside. Find other stories in this series here.
Do things happen for a reason? How do dots connect in retrospect to form the canvas of life?
During my post-graduation in public policy in India, I had the great fortune of hosting Hon. Amongi Betty, a Ugandan parliamentarian, at my university for a global conference on Gender narratives. India is a country of 1.35 billion human beings. 10,000 km away is Uganda with a population of 42 million. Betty was the only person from Uganda I knew. Fast forward five years, 8000 km away from India, I meet a shy Ugandan in the United Kingdom in my WHT cohort. I casually ask him if he knows the only Ugandan I know.
What are the odds that 2 people from a combined population of 1.4 billion humans meeting and finding a common link 8000km away from both their countries? I found my younger brother in Aaron, who happens to be a very close relative of Betty!
