An extraordinary girl

An unbelievable experience

Recently, something truly extraordinary happened to me for which there is no rational explanation. Even the many people I asked could give no answer to the enigma. It came about like this.

I and a close friend of mine were on our way from Pondicherry to Calcutta. During the taxi ride to Madras, we entertained each other with all kinds of stories and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Still in a jovial mood, we arrived at Madras station where we were to catch the Howrah Mail. Upon boarding the train, my friend, whom I will call Barun, found his seat without difficulty, but though I had made my reservation from Pondicherry we could find no seat reserved for me. Asking me to wait, Barun took my ticket and went to check with the Booking Office. There he was given the number of a bogey. When he returned, we quickly located it, and Barun helped me to my seat with my luggage, then left for his own compartment.

After a while, a man arrived and told me, "You are occupying my seat. Please let me have it — this is my number." Disconcerted, I got down and searched out Barun. Once again he made the trip to the Booking Office and came back with another seat number. But soon after I had settled myself in that, a lady appeared and claimed it for herself. My dismay grew. There were barely ten minutes left for the train to leave. Close to panic, I called on Barun again. He explained my problem to a passing ticket collector but the man could not even spare a moment to listen.

Finally Barun and I went to the Booking Office together, only to be told that they had never received any confirmation of my reservation from Pondicherry. I was at the end of my tether and almost broke down. I told Barun that there was no other way for me to go but to sit on the floor of the train. But the booking officer objected, "It is against the law," he declared.

Barun now expressed his own helplessness and advised me to go back to Pondicherry by myself as he had to return to Calcutta by this train. Then, as the first bell for the departure of the train had struck, he left me and boarded the train. I was terribly shaken. How was I to return to Pondicherry alone, late at night? Finding no other way, I did what I always do in such situations. With all my heart and soul, I began to call on the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to come to my rescue. Outwardly I kept looking this way and that for some escape from my predicament, when suddenly two young men came up to me and one of them said, "Ah, বৌদি (elder brother's wife), how is it that you are here all alone? Don't you recognize us? We are your husband's younger cousins. We met you many years ago and still remember you — but perhaps you don't remember us." It was true. Both were complete strangers to me but I had no choice except to trust them. I poured out my story.

"Oh, is that the trouble?" one of them replied. "Then you can travel with us in our compartment. We have two bunks —you can have the lower one and we two can share the upper."

Before I could reply they picked up my luggage, took me to their compartment and settled me there. Then they went off down the corridor. Soon after, the train started.

I arrived safely in Calcutta. During the trip I had been so relieved and so preoccupied with myself that I had completely forgotten about the two boys, who had never returned. We arrived about eight hours late because on the way a woman had committed suicide by throwing herself in front of the train. So it was not surprising that when I got down at Howrah, I found no one from my family waiting for me. When my friend Barun discovered me on the platform, he burst out in amazement: "How did you get on the train?"

It was only as I began to explain that I realised I had been alone throughout the journey, and that my two travelling companions had never reappeared. It now began to dawn on me who exactly it was who had helped me to reach Calcutta, but the riddle of the two boys remained. Barun was as happy and relieved at my good fortune as I was. Then, seeing that no one had come to receive me, he hailed a taxi for me and sent me home.

At home I recounted the incident to my relatives and asked if there were any cousins of my husband such as the two who had met me at Madras station. Completely mystified, their immediate impulse was to deny it. Still, they asked, "But did the boys touch your feet?"

"They must have," I replied, "though I don't have any recollection of it."

"And how did you pass two nights on the train without thinking of them even once?"

Here again was the unresolved question. "I don't know," I demurred, as confounded as they were. "It was only when we arrived at Howrah and Barun asked me how I got on the train that I came to my senses and remembered about them. All I could reply to Barun was that two of my cousins-in-law had miraculously appeared, put me on the train and then vanished."

"And not once — ?"

"I know, I know," I said shaking my head. "I was in such a dazed condition, almost as though under the influence of drugs, that I completely lost my normal awareness."

Only afterwards when I began to reflect in earnest on the bizarre happening did I ask my Guru if he had sent me those escorts. Was he really the one who had saved me, and were his instruments divine powers or men?

His answer was clear: "Of course they were divine powers and I did send them. But what does it matter to you whether they were human beings or something else?"

In this way, once again I realised my Guru's infinite grace that came in such a miraculous manner.