India: by Ashutosh
Me, my wife and our little daughter were to board Mangla express from Manmad on 27th September 2006. We started from Shirdi at 4 pm while the train was scheduled at 6:20 pm. We had enough time in hand but we had no clue that the Shirdi -Manmad highway is no longer a road. It has become a long pitch and there was a very severe traffic jam. We got stuck and desperately kept on calling the Manmad station for train status.., praying to Baba to make the train come late. However, the train came only ten minutes late and at that time we were 15 Km from Manmad. We missed the train.
Prayer to Baba
I started calculating what to do now and decided to draw money from an ATM in Manmad and buy tickets for the next train to Delhi. We finally reached Manmad at 7:45 pm and discovered to our shock that there is not a single ATM in Manmad or even facility to buy tickets by credit card. We were not carrying enough money, as we never expected this to happen. Silently, we prayed to Baba all the time and went on to buy general tickets to Mumbai.
In less than five minutes, we got the “train not boarded” refund certificate from the stationmaster and as soon as we reached the platform, within a minute we got a train to Mumbai. We boarded the AC compartment as we had sufficient money to buy 3 AC tickets of Manmad to Mumbai. The train was going to Kalyan, which is one end of Mumbai and we had to go to Mira Road, another end in opposite direction. Baba was so kind at that hour of the night that everything fell into place after that. When we got down at Kalyan, we were to go to another platform to take train to Dadar. But, to our shock, the Dadar local came at the same platform where we got down and that too within five minutes of our getting down.
Baba’s Answer
After that, we took a chance and called up my wife’s uncle, who is in Railways in Mumbai to find out connecting train from Dadar to Mira Road. To our great surprise, he was himself on duty on the last train. We requested him to do whatever but take us home in his train. At Dadar, the Kalyan train stops at one end of the station and the Mira road train at another end. The Mira road train had already arrived at Dadar. We crossed the bridge with bags and baby in arms and rushing to catch the train, as it was the last train. My wife’s uncle took the risk of halting the local train at Dadar for more than two minutes, which can be a major thing as no local in Mumbai stops for more than 30 seconds.
But he took that risk for us and with Baba’s blessings, we reached my wife’s house in Mira road at 2:00 am. Next evening we took the Rajdhani to Delhi. Baba did not delay the train for us at Manmad but just see how he then helped us. We did not face any problems at all.
He guided our instincts one by one and helped us reach home safe and sound. Dadar train coming on a different platform than usual and my wife’s uncle being on duty on the last local train to Mira road cannot be mere coincidences
Sai Vichaar, Saibaba.Org, Oct 26, 2006, http://www.saibaba.org/newsletter9-24.html retrieved 1/1/2017