Glad it happened!

Along with you I have hundreds of articles where devotees talked about how Periyava helped them in getting reservation in a train, catch the last bus/train, make a unscheduled stop of a train in a station etc! To me, most of them I read and enjoyed as “miracles” and some stayed on our mind and most of them I forgot those incidents because I do not know the actual reason why that happened. Who thought that I would experience such a thing! Here is my story from yesterday:

I was supposed to take a flight at 6PM back home. My work got over much sooner so I decided to explore previous flights. There were two options – one at 2.30 PM and other one was3.45 PM. When I checked this it was already 1.30. For a fraction of a second I thought that it would be great if I could to2.30 PM so that I can do my nithya puja myself as opposed to my son doing it…Then I realized it is bit late and drove to an Indian restaurant to eat. I drove to the front door of the restaurant and parked. For a fraction of a second that it occurred to me that it if I eat garlic, I can’t chant vedam. Suddenly I decided to skip lunch and try attempting for 2.30 itself.

I drove to airport, the agent told me that 2.30PM flight is a small aircraft (88 seat capacity) with oversold tickets. She said that I stand no chance in making to that flight and even the next one ahd she suggested me to stick with my original flight…Still I requested to put me on a stand-by mode (waiting list) for 2.30. I proceeded to the gate….

At the gate, I realized that there were totally 11 people on stand-by. I was at 5th spot as I have the Platinum status (nothing to be proud of!). The guys before me must be with higher status than mine.  I got myself a non-garlic sandwich – finished it. Waiting….For a fraction of a second I said to myself “We have heard from Sri Ghatam Subash mama about incidents how Periyava made him possible to fly on a plane and also read so many incidents similar to that. Here I am sitting…..”

Kept checking the monitor. Interestingly, I was pushed down to 6th position. Then I realized that this is over as I have zero chances of making to that flight – I opened up my laptop, connected the power cable. I texted back home that I couldn’t make it to 2.30 – will end up taking my original flight at 6PM! That is when I heard the agent announcing my name with lot of struggle to pronounce. I went and asked for whom did she page.

She showed me the just-printed boarding pass and asked, “Is this you?”.

“Yes”

“You better hurry, we are closing the gate”

I looked at the monitor – I still see my name at 6th spot!

Thursday evening for business travelers is critical in US- all flights will be booked and no one will give up their seat even if you offer them anything as all wants to go home! Even if if there are no-shows, having 5 no-shows on a same flight (with different last names) are impossible. The very reason I got pushed down to 6th spot is due to someone showed up at the gate in the last minute with better status. So clearly, it is not that someone gave up. There were 100 incidents where I was at wait list #1 and still didn’t make it to the flight. I could not find any other reasons – I am sure there are other business flyers in the blog…They can comment better..So what is it?

I thought through this during flight back. Then it struck to me about few thoughts came to me in few fractions of seconds. I started rewinding back! In my opinion, the very thought of my desire to do nithya puja if I land early+ proactively prepared myself by eating non-garlic lunch + thinking about Periyava must have made this happen. This is the only explanation I could think of…That is when I realized that all the incidents we read about making last bus to get delayed etc happened for some specific reason that only that person involved and Periyava knew.

To me, this is a first of the kind of experience. I still don’t know how this happened. Glad it happened! After I sat down for my puja in the evening, I realized that it was guruvaram! So did a special abishekam and puja for His padhukas!