Another Escape

It was early November when Guruji had come to Vrindavan to inaugurate an Ashram there. Like many other Guru-chasers, we decided to drive down from Delhi to have Guruji's 'darshan' there. We reached Mathura/ Vrindavan in the morning and the day that was to unfold brought us face-to-face with many miracles. Here I shall recount only one of them.
After being able to meet Guruji in person and having attended a Satsang with him, we started back for Delhi in the evening. I was driving a Maruti 800 and there were four of us in the car and we were doing a decent speed on the Mathura-Delhi highway as it was not too crowded at that time of the day.

We were about half-an-hour on the road when I was overtaking a huge trailer-truck, the type that are generally used to transport new cars from one city to another. The trailer-truck must have been about 40 feet long and I was half-way through overtaking it from the right when the driver of the truck suddenly started to move into my lane on the right.

Our tiny Maruti had nowhere to go, squeezed between the divider and the huge trailer. I braked desperately hoping that trailer will pass me before moving into my lane. That was not to be. We could only watch helplessly as the huge metal side-wall of the trailer moved closer and closer till there was a huge noise of metallic banging and scraping.

At the driving wheel, I could do nothing but wait for the moment when our tiny car would be toppled over the divider into the traffic on the opposite lane. Suddenly, there was silence as the huge trailer pulled away into the distance and we were sitting in the stationary car. I looked back – everybody was at least unhurt. I tried the ignition key, hoping against hope, while mentally trying to work out how to get help to tow the damaged car. Surprisingly the car moved smoothly and I could pull it up on the side of the road for an inspection of the extent of damage.

I did not have the heart to look at it and let my wife get down and see it from outside. She walked from back-to-front and front-to-back twice in utter surprise as we sat inside waiting for her verdict. "Not a scratch" that was what she could report.

By that time, even without talking to each other, we knew exactly who did this miracle. We all felt so blessed and peaceful at our heart that, a little later, when I overtook the same trailer-truck, I did not feel any grudge against the driver and did not even give him a glare.

A few kilometers ahead we stopped at a road-toll plaza where quite a few other cars were already waiting to go through. In one of them was Guruji - he was also travelling to Delhi to attend a Satsang at Chhattarpur! His car must have been a little distance behind us when we had our "accident"!
Kishore