"Awakenings" and a freaky coincidence

On a weekday last week, I borrowed some movies from the local library. Usually, I go by imdb ratings. The norm is, unless it is in the top 250 (all time), or rated above 8, I assign a low priority on watching it. It is most likely that I finish it in two sessions if it is a weekday. If it is crap, I never go past the first 15 minutes.

The chances of you picking up a gem outside of those 250 is rare.

Among the ones I picked up, I chose "Awakenings" - a Robyn Williams and De Niro starrer. Even though I had planned to watch it over two sessions, myself and my wife sat through the whole movie, spellbound. It was the story of a doctor (Robyn Williams) trying to help patients who are paralyzed and unresponsive due to a disease called Encephalitis. He finds out that a drug used for treatment of Parkinson's disease can bring these patients back to normal life. De Niro is a patient on whom the first trials are made. He awakens, 30 years after going into a coma as a 10 year old boy. Convinced that he got his life back, he falls in love with a girl whom he meets at the hospital. To his (and the Doctor's) horror, he finds out that the drug loses its effect over a period of time. When it dawns on him that he will have to go back to his old paralytic existence, he has to say the final goodbye to her. This scene is one of the most emotional scenes I have seen in a long, long time. I would say, this is De Niro's best performance ever.

You just cant go to bed and start snoring away after watching a movie like this. Therefore I decided to play online chess even though it was late into night. I logged in for a quick match. I found that the playing room was almost full, with 80 people online. I hooked up with a player, exchanged pleasantries and started the game. From his first name, I was sure he was either from India or Indonesia. Slowly, I began to realize that he is a very good player and was not a brush-off as I initially thought. By middle game, I started to admire his strength and was getting curious about him. I began to check his game statistics (ratings, etc) and found that this person is connected to this gaming room from one of the social networking sites in which I am active. For the sake of privacy, people usually change their names when they play online games. But I had a hunch that this person may not have done so. Therefore I checked his profile online.

I was stunned!

Now tell me this.

What are the odds that I was playing with a person who was the victim of the same disease that I saw in a movie minutes earlier?