In God We Trust

I am agnostic. That’s only because I can’t make up my mind between atheism and godliness. Neither of the estates is convincing enough for me to be on one side or another. Its also a good hedging strategy… I can easily tumble into either of the branches – assuming one of them starts appealing me sometime later in my life. By now, you must be thinking that I don’t have anything against either of the estates… the reality is that I do get put off by rituals.

Anyway, when a believer says “In God We Trust”… the key question is “how much?” What’s the extent to which a believer should/would go for the God to do something for him/her?

This brings me to an interesting, real, Sudha Murty types story… and ahem, it’s related to travel…
Before I get started, a note for my critiques – some people are never happy… some of them could be so whimsical… after a story on air travel and one on rail travel, the assumption was that the third one would be on road and the one after that would be on sea travel. Come on guys… I am not really a traveler types traveler… I don’t travel for the sake of traveling… all my travels are need based…
Anyway, I have managed to get one on road travel which might be interesting enough (?)…
Btw, this was not to discourage you from critiquing… keep it coming… I love all the comments!

Let me get started then… this is what happened –

This was a few years back… I had gone for trekking (yes, yes, it’s true! Honestly!)… this was somewhere close to Bangalore (within 100 km)… We ended our trek in a village – I don’t remember the name of the place now… the village was (and maybe still is unless its gobbled up by one of those numerous dam projects) in sort of a valley… it was the last stop on the bus route.
It was a Sunday and there was a HUGE crowd at the bus stand… I think there was some kind of Sunday market (हाट) in the village… it was evening already and everyone was trying to take a bus out of the village… There were many buses going out of the village but all of them were jam packed… we just could not get on to any one of them…

After multiple unsuccessful attempts, we decided to do a mini version of what I tried in “Dr Ambedkar, why Nagpur?”… we walked some 1 km out of the village and decided to waive down one of the incoming buses… the first one arrived, we smiled and waived and waived but it did not stop… what the hull?! The group was of some 10-15 people and we virtually blocked the road in a bid to stop the next bus… the next one came… it slowed down… hurray – we made it… but no… the driver did not stop, he wavered on to the shoulder (whatever was available there) and went past us… we ran behind the bus – shouting… the guy just refused to stop… anyway, 2 of the studs managed to get onto the now speeding bus… the losers and the remaining stud jogged back to the bus stop. Fortunately the bus was yet to start it’s journey back and the 2 studs had managed to keep a few seats for the losers and the 3rd stud.

I (the 3rd stud – for the losers who don’t get the obvious hints!) slipped into my seat amidst all the stares of people who did get on to the bus before me but still did not have a seat… the bus was overcrowded just like all the ones before this one…
Soon the bus started the journey back… as I mentioned earlier, the village was in a valley and soon – around 2 kms out – the bus started going uphill… TATA (or Leyland) bus, overcrowded, going uphill – the expected happened… the bus stalled at one of the steep turns.

The driver tried couple of turns of the key in the hole and the engine came back to life… Many of the people shouted "गोविंदा, गोविंदा" (Govinda, Govinda). I was impressed – the bus driver seemed to be a pretty popular character… I said so to one of the losers sitting next to me… He checked with one of the “starers” and soon I was made to realize that Govinda was not the name of the driver… it wasn’t about the actor Govinda as well (who anyway must be unknown in that part of the world)… they were all praying to Lord Govinda (an avatar of Lord Vishnu) – chanting his name so that the bus does not stall again! In God We Trust!!
Well, the bus moved a couple of inches and lo and behold... it stallled again... so much for Mr Govinda.

The driver fiddled with the hole again and the engine came back to life again… the chant of Govinda, Govinda filled up the air again… the bus moved couple of inches and stalled again…

For me the most sensible thing to do was for some people to get down and may be push the bus up the sharp, steep turn, i.e., less weight and extra force… but the believers wont have any of that…
I was in a dilemma – do I get down and push the bus (and hence lose my seat) OR convert to a believer… After a minute or two of thinking I decided that a bus seat (just a bus seat, that too not so comfortable) cant be a strong enough reason for me to get converted. I got down and persuaded some more (am sure agnostics and atheists) to get down and push… all this while the tamasha of Govinda, Govinda and driver fiddling with the keys and peddle was going on…
I guess, finally, some 20% of the people got down and helped push the bus up the slope amongst the chants of Mr Govinda. I lost my seat but managed to keep my “faith!”

Cursing the idiots who took my seat, standing sandwiched between couple of other losers like me, standing towards the end of the bus, braving the lurches, it dawned upon me that there could be another way of looking at the whole thing - The chants of the believers were indeed heard by Lord Govinda (or whichever avatar was free at that point of time)… He help his followers but, of course, wanted to teach the non-believers a lesson… Ah, now all the dots were connected – why we had to push the bus and lose our seats while the people who “Trust” got a better deal…

Ladies and Gentlemen: In God We Trust!

PS – Avinash, sorry Nagpur does not figure in this story