Miracles Do Take Place!

A Simple Miracle
A lesson that I have learnt recently is that turning twenty-three does not necessarily make one wise enough to take on the world or understand the protocol of the society. The twenty-three year old that I am talking about here is myself. The last five years that have been spent toiling really hard to earn myself an “oh-so coveted” degree of being a dentist does not imply that I am a sane individual. The underlying cause of my “insanity” lies in the cloud of confusion which has stormed into all of the room meant for rational thinking. But these are thoughts and I don’t know of any person who can control the flow the innumerable thoughts entering their minds—a la “dimaag mein solid chemical locha”. This did teach me a few things about chemistry and the most important one was that the chemical turmoil caused in your mental labyrinth does not agree to let go of you. Being a very normal human being it then became quite essential for me to hunt down a sensible solution to the grave problem that I was facing….but did I mention what my problem was? The strenuous situation may be easy for many and difficult for the rest and the situation is – WHAT NEXT? The question is strictly pertaining to the life that I will be starting afresh with a graduate certificate under my belt, but then suddenly I realize that there is no freshness in the new life. What I foresee in my life is boredom and monotony associated with my future clinical life wholly and solely related with dentistry. It may be a field which is high on money but I am the kinds who would like to go in for some job satisfaction too. A thousand queries with absolutely no answers was driving me and my friends crazy (friends because they were the ones who had to take on the responsibility of listening to my repetitive balderdash). Struggling with lots of things including the big challenge to prepare for the post-graduate entrance examinations due in a short period, my mind was dying, I was dying.
Enough is enough I decided. Since nothing was getting to think me straight the only thing that deemed feasible then was some desperate divine intervention. So packed in a few stuff and hopped onto the bus for Shirdi. Thought even if God wouldn’t be able to help me out then at least some fresh Maharashtrian country-side would. Finally after eight hours of bus journey and a short walk led me to the doorstep of the temple in Shirdi. Bought a few floral and sweet goodies for Baba and with the tray I too stood in the really long and serpentine queue. Then just like an unsuspected lightening would struck someone, I too was struck but with a thought that said-“Wow, you are not the only one expecting a miracle in your life…there are millions looking out for God’s special blessing!” The thought was good enough to keep my mind away from the wait needed to get me Baba’s ‘darshan’. It was philosophical and a contemplative series of fireworks on display in my mind and simultaneously my heart too. Both were on a fantastic debate on life and it was great to listen to them both voicing out their opinions. Then just as how quick that lightening thought had struck me, something else struck my vision now later finding its course to my heart. The sight was of seven or eight year old boy suffering from mental and physical retardation trying to make his way, with help from his father, through the ocean of people around him. The kid had a very nonchalant but a lost and a dreamy look ignorant about the stream of people flowing by him and while his father was helping him walk and at the same time trying control his drooling. This sight completely anesthetized my mind, my heart and me I in whole. I couldn’t think, I was just out right numb. Later as I surged ahead in the queue, I saw a very beautiful face of a three/four year old girl smiling at me; I smiled back only later to realize that the girl was suffering from Down’s syndrome. I just moved ahead finally getting the ‘darshan’. But quite surprisingly, in spite of the troubled mind that I possessed I did not know what am I supposed to ask from Baba-a miracle? I was clueless. So I just bowed before Him and left the temple premises to later find myself on the bus home.
As I looked outside the window, to gaze at the passing rural life soaking in the evening sun, the picture of the three year old smiling at me and the seven year old boy and his father trying to make their way through the people kept flashing. I was completely overwhelmed. Tears began to roll down my cheeks. They weren’t tears of sympathy for the children but tears of sympathy for me. Me, because I had just realized that I had been extremely selfish. God had been kind to me from the very beginning, giving me a life that would surely be called luxurious but still I was unsatisfied, still asking for a miracle to take place in my life.
A miracle did take place in my life; the miraculous sight of the children who no matter what they were going through did keep up smiling and irrespective of their situation did managed to fight their adversities. I was changed. Change in the sense that no more cursing the life I was living and the thought that keeps me going is that just like me there are millions on the look out for a miracle to take place in their lives and then there are the ones who themselves are the miracles in life. Simple miracles. Special miracles. Thank you God.