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Articles: Devotion | When God becomes Guardian
- Prof. venkata ramanamurty mallajosyula
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On May 31, 2004, at 3.45am, we started our drive to Phoenix International Airport. As we were about ten miles to the airport, I smelt gasoline, and within a minute we entered a four lane freeway tunnel. Suddenly we heard a loud bang, and our car swerved out of control; it went spinning. Later, we understood it was a tire blowout. A huge container truck, which was following us, narrowly missed hitting us, and we spun from the right most lane to the left most, and turned 360* and back into the right lane.
In that instant, knowing that it was impending death, I kept chanting “Sairam, Sairam!” and closed my eyes. The car came to a screeching halt, and when I opened my eyes, I saw we were now facing the oncoming traffic, and waiting for a mid-sized van to run into us. “Sairam! There comes Lord Yama (God of death)!” I thought. Amazingly, the van came to a halt just centimeters from our car, and the van driver got down and enquired as to what happened.
Soon a police car arrived, and I was sitting behind the wheel, while my husband and the van driver, Ed, pushed the car towards the shoulder of the freeway (a narrow strip of paved road to help drivers to safely park their cars during emergencies). The police officer started asking me questions, thinking I was the driver of the car. By then I had tears in my eyes. Swallowing my tears, I told him that in an hour I was heading to Los Angeles, and from there proceeding to India. He said,” No problem, Madam, I can drive you and your child to the airport.”
My husband came forward and explained the situation, wherein the police officer gave a tip to park the car on the shoulder, and that the car should be parked along the flow of traffic. That way it would not be towed, and we could avoid an unnecessary expenditure of about $200. They looked at the car tire, and shook their heads in disbelief that we survived without even a scratch on our bodies on such a high speed tire blowout!
In that instant, knowing that it was impending death, I kept chanting “Sairam, Sairam!” and closed my eyes. The car came to a screeching halt, and when I opened my eyes, I saw we were now facing the oncoming traffic, and waiting for a mid-sized van to run into us. “Sairam! There comes Lord Yama (God of death)!” I thought. Amazingly, the van came to a halt just centimeters from our car, and the van driver got down and enquired as to what happened.
The van driver, Ed, (he was about Bhagavan’s height) said, he was an airport employee and would be happy to give us a ride to the airport. Luckily, he had a car-seat for my son, and we transferred the luggage and proceeded to the airport. We had just fifteen minutes to check in, and thanked Ed for his kindness.
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