Prayers Sailed the Boat

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Ramesh was doing some petty jobs at Katpor in Gujrat, like plumbing, electrical and so on. His father was a primary school teacher in the same village. Katpor is situated on the southern bank of river Narmada. Ramesh has one childhood friend, Suresh.

One day, when Ramesh was doing some work at home, he received a phone call form Suresh, who told him that he is not well and requested Ramesh to help him for ferrying the Parikrama pilgrims.  

Parikrama, a circumambulation of a river Narmada has been practiced by Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists since thousands of years. Narmada Parikrama is a holy pilgrimage of almost four thousand kilometres journey cleansing body, mind, and soul.

Suresh has a small boat for ferrying pilgrims from Katpor, on southern bank of river Narmada to Mithi Tala, northern bank. That was full moon day, on which Suresh requested Ramesh to captain his boat. Being a childhood friend, Ramesh agreed to do. It was around 3.30 p. m. That day, high tide time was to start at about 5 p.m. Sailing was to be done through backwater to enter sea. Suresh asked Ramesh to pick up the motorboat key form the Boat Station.

Ramesh went to boat station, where the registered pilgrims normally wait to board the boat for going to Northern Mithi Talai. Ramesh collected keys and made entry in the register. He asked all his passenger to follow him. They reached the boat at 4.30 p.m. They were fifteen people in their mid-fifties, twelve men and three females, two of which were Dervish and 4-5 Sadhus, in their peculiar Saffron clads. It takes approximately four hours to sail through the Arabian sea, after entering through backwater form southern bank.

By the time boat entered sea water, it was almost the sunset. Reddish sun rays were flying over the water making it beautiful. Dervish were chanting the Sufi bhajans. Later, Sadhus started chanting Kabir’s dohas and Sant Tukaram’s Abhangas. All fellow pilgrims had joined cores. Everybody was enjoying the sailing. All immersed in the devotional environment completely. Blue sky was full of twinkling stars and all around was vast sea. Nobody realised how they completed the long four-hour sailing and almost reached the Mithi Talai, on northern bank of Narmada.  

Since the jetty was small and lot of boats already arrived there were anchored for getting passengers alighted, Ramesh was waiting at distance, waiting for clearance to anchor his boat. One of the passengers mobile ranged and he picked up the call.

“Hello, Mr Sharma, where are you?” Suresh was asking form other side.

“Surehsh bhai, we have reached Mithi Talai. Where are you?” Mr Sharma questioned back.

“I am at Katpor and not well. I am trying Ramesh’s number since long, but I could not talk to him. Can you please give your phone to him? I want to talk to him urgently.” Suresh requested.

Mr Sharma handed over his handset to Ramesh.

“Ha Suresh bhai kem cho?” Ramesh greeted.

“Hey, form where you got refuelled diesel in the boat?” Suresh asked.

“Refuelled? What are you talking Suresh?” Ramesh was astonished with the question.

“Ramesh bhai, when I called you in the noon, I forgot to tell you that the boat is already on reserved fuel and you need to refuel it first.” Suresh revealed the astonishing fact.

“What? Boat was on reserve? No. No. It is not possible. How it can be?” Ramesh could not believe. “But then, how we sailed without fuel and reached northern bank Suresh bhai?”

“I do not know. If you do not believe me, go and check fuel indicator.” Suresh asked him.

Ramesh and other passengers went and saw the fuel indicator and really it was showing below reserve.

Dervish and Sadhus looked at Ramesh, smiled and raised their hands for blessing.

#prayers #Sadhu #Darvish