The Motorcycle Diaries*

Before the Sunrise

It was Saturday and we still had no clues about our trip, which was supposed to commence the next day. Alpesh and I decided a month back that we would go together on a trip to some nice place in Gujarat. After a month the only things we knew were that we would go to a place called Ratanmahal in the east Gujarat bordering Madhya Pradesh on a bike. Alpesh could not contact Pradip -who suggested the place to us -for more details in remaining days. I had a bit somber mood on this particular day since I thought we might not make it to the trip. At one moment I even entertained the idea of dropping the whole plan – how in the world someone can call it a plan! But I was quite keen to go and sensed the same keenness when I talked to Alpesh.

In the evening my brother arrived unannounced with a couple of his friends after attending one of their friends’ wedding. A few moments later he left the house to drop his friends to the bus station. This would have been the inconsequential detail for this post had it not been for the coincidence of talking to his friend, Jaypal. As it turned out, they did not get the bus and came back half an hour later. From our chitchat, I came to know that Jaypal was familiar with Ratanmahal and surrounding areas. Jaypal ran me through the map of the area, showed the places to visit and the route to take. It boosted my confidence immensely. Had he got his bus, I would have not talked to him later and would have gone to Gandhinagar, where Alpesh lives, with little enthusiasm. Not that our trip materialized the way I envisaged it while talking to Jaypal. On the contrary, it was completely different. But the booster it provided to me was something I needed badly.

The day before, I started reading a fascinating book The Power of Coincidence. The book talks about the powerful coincidence we come across in our lives and their significance, and even how to increase their frequency for a better life. Let me confess – I did not believe in meaningfulness of them until then; for me they were mere events with statistical probabilities, however small they may be, which have very realistic chance of occurrence and they do occur at times. I saw no patterns in them and I thought they were beyond one’s control. Call it a chanced encounter, nothing more. The book changed whole of that. Within a day I experienced the coincidence, the meaningful one and powerful one. I believed it was a interference from a higher order, the universal soul as they call it. Belief makes it happen.

Late night I boarded a bus to Gandhinagar. The journey was uneventful except the fact that the weather was cold. Early morning, before the sunrise, I was at Alpesh’s place. He was returning back from Delhi later that morning. Marveling at the power of coincidence, I slipped into a dream world.

* This has nothing to do with Che Guevara.

To Be Continued...