Sunday, November 15, 2009

Was it something supernatural!

I have narrated this story only before a few relatives, this is the first time I am narrating it publicly. You may scoff at me for trying to make a chance happening, a supernatural experience, well you may be correct ! But if you were a character in that story it would be nothing short of supernatural for you too.

It was about ten years ago, people were celebrating the birthday of a Guru Ji in Ayodhya in a big way. His followers from all over the world had started collecting at his ashram in Ayodhya about a fortnight before the actual big day. We, that is me and my father, were not invited to that function officially since it was only for ladies but my mother was an invitee and was already in Ayodhya and at the ashram.

It was November and a panch kosi parikrama (circumambulation of five kos [a unit of distance in rural India]) was going on which meant that no vehicles were allowed inside Ayodhya except those having permits from SP (police chief) of Ayodhya . We did not know this so were kind of lost as we had no idea about an alternative route ! It was dark when we reached outskirts of Ayodhya and very foggy too. Ayhodhya is much colder than Lucknow in winters due to lack of pollutants which are liberally present in the atmosphere of Lucknow all the year round.

So it was quite dark and foggy and we asked for alternative routes and ultimately found one route which was supposed to take us to another entry point in Ayodhya nearer our destination. It was really dark with only our car's headlights providing the light, there were no streetlights, no houses could be seen, no flourescent signs nothing at all! We were about to climb what looked like a flyover, a new structure for us since in our numerous visits to Ayodhya prior to this one , we had never come across a flyover. As were just about to start the climb a person dragging a bicycle stopped us by wave of hand, now when we think about it - it seems incredible since it was foggy and dark and there were no lights whatever heaven knows how we saw him waving. He stopped us and said very politely that he knew a better route and that was just parallel to the over bridge and we need not climb the over bridge . We were highly suspicious of him mainly because there was no person around except him and we could not see his face in the dark at all but he was so insistent that we backed up the car and took the road beside the overbridge, we wanted to bid goodbye or thank the person but by that time he was gone.

Ten or twenty metres down that road my father who was driving, was extremely irritated as there was a lot of mud on the road and the windscreen was getting really dirty. About 200 meters down that road the car just stopped and would not move forward at all. We got down and found that it had got stuck in a lot of mud. We looked around to see if there were people we could ask for help but there was no soul in sight and in any case it was so dark. Just then I happened to look above me and what do I see ...... there was no flyover ...... I mean to say that the middle plateau part of the flyover had not been made at all....... I did not say a word but just pointed out that gap to father .

Later I pushed the car a bit and it got out of that muddy hole and started. We did not speak a word about that incident not only that day but for years afterwards, I really do not know why. Only years later we told mother about that incident, when the bridge was all complete and I had taken the government bus to come to Lucknow from Ayodhya . I estimated that the plateau part of that flyover was almost three stories high!

I am not sure of the details of that incident but one thing I am absolutely sure of and that is that the person on the bicycle never ever mentioned a single word about the bridge being incomplete and that is the only thing my father is sure of about this whole incident.

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