The day I saw GOD
Date: Saturday, August 26th 2006
Place: I-79 S
What were we doin???: Driving back from
“Love doesn’t have boundaries”…
…was one of the famous quotes that I recalled when I was reading through an article sometime not so long ago. Evoking this quote made me become conscious of the eternally long-lasting love story with me and my ‘first love’. For those of you, who by now have let your mind's eye flow, I’m not trying to talk about an over-sentimental romantic tale with some girl in my life. It is in relation to a sport with which I have been associated (you can say ‘married’!) to, over the past 20 years. My chemistry with cricket started as early as I was born. At 1.03 A.M. on September 26th 1982, I became the most recent addition to the ever escalating population of the Indian nation. And surprisingly enough, my parents named me after the ‘Jewel’ in the Indian batting ‘crown’ back then.
Even after I begin to think that the days of my competitive and professional cricket are almost over, the game seems to stalk me at any destination I head towards. Two years ago, it would have been a wild fantasy and beyond the heights of my imagination to have been thinking of playing cricket in a place like
Cricket is fairly relatable to one’s personal life. And in my case, it has been more than often true. To sum it up and make it terser, the game has taught me more on how to be modest, reverential and lead a regimented life. But on Saturday I was fortunate that cricket gave me a rare opportunity that many would not get to see. When we drove back home after finishing one of our routine weekend games, I believe that I witnessed god before my naked eye!
The day was rough and uninteresting. The team and I had more anguish than what we anticipated. Two days before the game, I had twisted my ankle and this ruled me out of the season for a minimum of two weeks. To make things worse, our team lost two more of our prime players due to unforeseen last minute commitments. With a lackluster bowling performance, I forlornly watched my side getting beaten black and blue.
With the frustration arising from defeat, we packed our bags and started to drive back. And this, gave me an opportunity to observe the most phenomenal spectacle in my life hitherto. The captain of our team owns a mini van and around 8 players along with our kit bags fit into the van pretty comfortably. With me having a tendency to take short naps on relatively long drives on the interstate roads, I stayed unaware on what the other players kept discussing.
But then….with 60 miles still to go towards
Initially we tried to talk him out of the sleep…but he wouldn’t budge. Then, observing one more incident made us realize that having any sort of noise would mean more trouble! As we watched his cell phone ring, his body started shaking awkwardly, and this made the van go berserk. I quickly managed to grab his phone and turn it off. Without opening my mouth, I signaled to the others in the van to set their cell phones to the silent mode. All of us watched the proceedings with our hearts in the mouth. It was an amazing sight to see the man drive with such impeccability with both his eyes closed. There weren’t any problems for a while as we did not have face any major traffic.
Our first problem arose when all the cars were instructed to slow down due to road work, and everyone was directed to use the left lane. I was ready to pounce onto the brakes and press it with my hand if anything was to go wrong. As we neared the barricades, I watched his foot move towards the brake and slow down the vehicle to 45 mph on the dot! He was quick to switch his left indicator light on and get the vehicle to the left lane without any problems or without any honks from the cars following us. And imagine...he was doing all this with both his eyes closed!
With some confidence about his driving after us witnessing some incredulous stuff, we relaxed a bit before having another anxious moment. Out of the blue was a rise in speed as he hit the accelerator in such as a way so that the car touched 90 mph. Without any other way to conquer his mental state, I was forced to speak softly into his ear saying, “Please slow down”. This time, it worked as he slowed down and got back to normal driving.
The moment of the day came when we were almost near
With the commencement of the fall semester and with the induction of thousands of new students into WVU, traffic inside the town was far worse than the ordinary days. But, nothing seemed to bother our sightless maestro on road. He safely guided us through the city traffic to take us to the place we assemble before every morning on game day. Everyone got down and we slid the van’s door to close. As soon as we closed the door, he started the engine again to disappear into to the road.
I met him the very next day and asked him what had gone wrong? But, he couldn’t recollect a single moment about the incident that had taken place. Even after having a detailed discussion with some people I knew, we couldn’t draw a conclusion to this startling miracle that I had witnessed.
The captain of our team is a highly god fearing person. At the age of 24, he happens to be the Imam (Religious head) of the local mosque. Although he preaches Islam, he doesn’t confine himself from learning the customs/practices in the other religions. In fact, I was surprised about his knowledge in Hinduism when we both were discussing about ‘Life after death’ in one of our meetings. At one point of time, I was forced to accept that his awareness about Hinduism and its rituals were better than many of the Hindus that I have met.
With a man who shows so much faith and gives intense respect to religion in general, I have only one explanation to this incident. I believe it was GOD in the form of our captain that day. Many might say I am crazy to conclude it this way…, but I have no other explanation! I still cannot believe what I had seen and it would undoubtedly be a delusion for a few more days to come. With atheists around asking me the million dollar question about the existence of god….I have an answer for all of them now….
“I HAVE SEEN GOD”
posted by Stallion at 1:28 PM
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