After both our daughters were married in 2010, my wife, Geetha and I travelled to many parts of India. We went to various places for sightseeing, meeting Holy men and women, visiting some of our relatives, observing silence, doing research on our charitable work and generally having a good time.
I am sixty two years old and left India to migrate to the USA in 1977. I am an NRI, whatever that means. In some quarters within India I am not qualified to talk about India. In some circles, I am considered objective. In the USA, I am looked upon as an immigrant, with all the baggage that goes with that term. Some good, and some not so good!
Our travels were between June 26th, 2011 and August 31st , 2011. This is one of my observations.
Is it Premonition? An episode in Netala
Geetha and I were traveling from Rishikesh to Netala by Jeep. If the road conditions are good, the travel time will be about six hours. We were going to visit the Vani Niketan School in Netala and also enjoy our stay at the Ashram of Swamini Pramananda, on the banks of the river Bhagirathi. Throughout the drive, you are surrounded by the Himalayas. An amazing sight.
About twelve miles before Uttarakashi, all vehicles were stopped due to a landslide. It was about 12.30 p.m. and the sun was beating down hard. A motor cycle pulled up alongside our jeep. A lady of approximately thirty eight years, Deepa, with her nine month old daughter, Siya, was riding in the rear of the motor cycle driven by her brother. Deepa had visited her friends and was going back to her home.
We asked Deepa to wait out the road reopening by sitting in the shelter of our jeep. Geetha had heard that you should not name a child Siya (Sita).The character in Ramayana did suffer a lot. Geetha did not say anything. I have never seen Geetha interact with so much love and abandon with a child, other than her own, the way she did. Siya is one of the most beautiful children. I have the pictures to prove it.
After almost two hours, the roads were reopened. Siya, safely in her mother’s arms, Deepa and her brother were on their way in the motor cycle. The roads were bad. Less than ten minutes later, our driver, Vinod, suddenly stopped the Jeep and started running behind our vehicle. He had seen in his rear view mirror that the mother had fallen off the two wheeler along with Siya. It was a bumpy road and she just slipped off. The motor cycle did not fall nor did the brother. Deepa had apparently hit her head on the road and was not responding to her brother’s calls. She was in a coma.
Vinod decided that Deepa, Siya and Deepa’s brother were going in our jeep to the nearest hospital. Vinod drove as fast as he could. Deepa was not responding to her brother’s calls and Siya was crying as she was hurt in the process In the meanwhile, Geetha was crying hysterically at the plight of Deepa and Siya. All I could do was pray. I prayed as hard as I could. I started chanting the Dhanvantari sloka. Remember, we are now in the Himalayas. Forget your idea of a hospital emergency room. Ambulance. First responders. ER physician. Calling 911. It does not exist.
After what seemed like an eternity, we went to the first “hospital”. To make matters worse, I was wearing my shorts and looked more like a tourist (bum?) than a man with an emergency on his hand. I was desperate for a Doctor. I was told by one of the staff members to take the stretcher and bring the patient in. With the brother’s help, I brought Deepa into the hospital. The Doctor told me that they are not equipped to handle these kind of head injuries. All he can do is to stabilize the patient and we should take her to Uttarakashi, a much bigger town with a hospital that can handle this type of emergency. The Doctor inserted an IV. I have no idea what it does.
Vinod, God bless him, drove as fast as he can to Uttarakashi Hospital. I grabbed the stretcher myself and wheeled the patient in to meet the Doctor. In the midst of this commotion, where we were dealing with life and death, it suddenly occurred to me that if I stay too long in the hospital, and the police were to get involved, I will quickly go from being a Good Samaritan to the person responsible for the head injury of Deepa. I asked Vinod what he would do in these circumstances. I think he is more realistic about the local dynamics. He said, now that she in the hands of the Doctor, we should leave. We did just that. We were very relieved to see that Siya had just a surface wound and she was going to be alright. It was Deepa we were not sure about.
The next three days of our stay in Netala were spent praying for the welfare of Deepa. I had instructed Vinod not to tell me or Geetha if Deepa’s condition took a turn for the worse. It was not possible to get them out of our mind. Geetha was asking herself, over and over again, whether she should have said something to convince Deepa that she should not go by the motor cycle but with us in our Jeep. It appears that Vinod did ask Deepa and offered them a ride in our jeep. For reasons best known to them, they decided to continue their journey by motor cycle.
It is all pre ordained. How can we change the script? The thought coming into Geetha’s head, Vinod’s offer being turned down, the falling down from the two wheeler and the state of the emergency rooms is all part of the script. We are just witnesses. Accepting our limitations in the big scheme of things and a complete surrender to God is a very emancipating feeling. While it sounds defeatist or downright cruel, that is Vairagya. Taken to its logical conclusion, that feeling of freedom, when applied to our personal situations, is maturity. No drama, no fuss. Just doing what needs to be done, with love, but with complete surrender to God. Faith in God. It simply means that we have to accept our Karmic responsibilities.
Three days later, when Vinod came to pick us up for our trip back to Rishikesh at 7.00 a.m. his first words were that Deepa and Siya were discharged from the hospital and we have nothing to worry. I can’t tell you how much that meant to us.
Looking back, surely, Deepa and Siya were connected to both of us in some previous life.
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