God or Chance?

Several years ago, I went on ā pilgrimage along with my Parents and two sisters, one of whom was handicapped, to some of the Vishnu temples in Andhra Pradesh. We were hailing from Chennai and we could not speak “Telugu”, the local language. It was a weekday and we were heading for ā temple of Lord Ram at ā scenic place called Badhrachalam, located on the banks of river Godavari. We did not make any reservation for hotels or lodges at Badhrachalam (I don’t recollect if that place had such facilities) in advance; as we thought we would reach the place on time and can manage with some adhoc arrangements and also with the thought that sincere devotion will find us a way.

Since it was the interior parts of the state, people could not understand Tamil and English and so with some difficulty we finally boarded the right bus, sometime in the afternoon. We did not have any clue about the arrival time at the destination as the fellow passengers and the bus conductor could not understand us (they were typical villagers). It was almost 9.30 in the night and nervousness crept in as the thought about reaching ā new place at an odd time with no one to help, brought fear in our minds. When I looked around for help, I noticed a young man waking up and I tried my luck with him. He somehow managed to speak in (broken) English and told us that the bus would reach only by 11.30 pm or so. We were almost in tears as we did not have any food to eat and also since boarding was not finalised. But the person understood our plight and offered us his place to stay for the night, stating that we could trust him in the name of God. We thanked him profusely and agreed to stay with him.

He spoke to us in a very friendly way and we understood from him that he was a bachelor from some other part of the state and was returning to work in Badhrachalam, after a brief holiday. Infact, he was supposed to have travelled the previous day but then due to some reasons could not do so.

Though we had agreed to stay with him, there was doubt and fear in our minds and the thought that there were three ladies (and gold jewels as well) with us only added fuel to the fire. When we arrived at the destination finally at around 12 in the midnight, we could see that all shops and establishments had closed. With no choice left, and prayers on our lips, we followed him. It was a pleasant walk in the cold of the night but we found it tedious because of fear. He cleaned up a room in his house and brought some food in no time even at that time of the night. Explaining the way to the river and the temple, he bade us good bye saying that he would leave very early the next morning. We woke up in the morning and set our journey to the river and then to the temple, thanking the good soul and God for sending him to us rescue.

Now, the intriguing part in the story is that the person’s name was “RAMA RAO” and so was the presiding deity’s name. We were convinced that God had sent him (with his own name) to make sure that we were being taken care of (he was destined to travel with us to help!). It might be debatable whether it was God or sheer chance that helped us but there is a famous saying in Sanskrit which means that “God takes a human form” to help his devotees. For believers, it is god who helps us in difficult times and for others it is destiny, chance etc. Whatever it is, good thoughts and faith definitely come to our rescue in distress times!