The Master makes sure that Fun and Chaos go hand in hand. Just fun is like the plain vanilla version – which He does not like serving His devotees with and chaos devoid of fun is not in His nature. Guru Stories are ongoing sagas and sharing them each time fills my heart with gratitude. My marriage to Vivek is also His story and even post-marriage, He did not stop, instead the Guru Stories are increasing more and more. So here it goes – straight from the heart! After the beautiful trip at Kashmir, we had our flight back to Delhi from Jammu ( nearest city from kashmir that has an airport ) on the 10th of June at 8am. Luckily, we happened to scroll through our mailbox on the 9th night at our cousin’s place and realized that our flight had been rescheduled to 12 noon on 10th June. Our travel agent had dropped a mail 3 days back for the same. We were grateful for the suddenly peeping our mailbox else the following day would have come into trouble. So we got ready the next day to reach the airport on time but there was something not in our favor and we got delayed. The cousin had her own set of traditions to see us off that consumed 15 extra minutes. Each second seemed so precious that both of us could literally hear our hearts throbbing loudly, for our 5th level of existence, the memory, does not have many pleasant impressions as far as airport experiences are concerned; with awards for flight misses and cancellations at the last moment for both of us! Our attempts to explain our cousin to speed up her process had all gone in vain! Sri Sri – as always, our last resort! It feels utterly foolish at times to run around for these petty things chanting Guruji, Guruji when by relaxing, He is offering the highest! Nevertheless, the vehicle to take us to the airport had arrived by then and the little hope that we would be able to make it in time was deflated! It was a Maruti van with a lost driver (the driver was driving the car really slow and seemed to be confused). On our constant requests to drive faster, he did not budge from his pre-decided speed it seemed. Meanwhile we tried the online check in but somehow we always forget that it closes 2 hours prior to the flight departure. Also, on calling the airlines, we didn’t get any help regarding telephonic checking. To add to the humor I asked Vivek, which was the next available flight? Many-a-times, he had seen his flight flying in front of his eyes, with the boarding pass in his hands, from the boarding gate – so he has this extra flight phobia
At Jammu airport – the driver said he’ll have to go through some extra sets of security checks before seeking entry to the airport, for obvious reasons. This piece of auspicious information made us laugh out to our fullest and the Guru’s work went a step further. We smiled more and started singing bhajans (musical hymns and chanting in praise of the Lord) instead of letting our minds dive into the blame game. Luckily at the first check, the cops gave us entry through the road for VIP’s, which meant no further checks and direct entry to the airport. But to add to the spice, the driver did not know the correct entrance gate. It was already 11.15 am – the time when the check-in closes – 45 minutes prior to departure. A policeman was there again to guide us through the way. Both of us then started planning- I would barge in with our tickets and he would handle the luggage. On reaching, we literally jumped out of the van. Draped in a heavy saree (an Indian ethnic wear), I ran and ran, remembering to give my 100 percent. A man came as an apprentice for our luggage and told us to head towards the check-in counter and grab the boarding pass. We then ran to the Air-India counter, with a new rhythmic breath pattern. It was already 11.35 am, and all my mind could hear was – how can you expect to board, twenty minutes after the closure of check-in. Silently, the executive took the ticket and issued the boarding pass and said – The flight had been delayed by 1.5 hours. The smile on our face grew wider and we asked what if it was not? he smiled at us and said, “I would have then guided you to the tickets and reservations counter for the next available flight.” We realized how HIS working is! Chaotic fun turned to Grateful fun.
~ Suvidha Malhotra
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