Guru Positioning System

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Yogiji was in Europe recently. It was my good fortune and a blessing to be able to drive Him during this visit. On one of the days, we were driving to a particular destination. The day was overcast and it had been raining heavily since morning. Due to the heavy downpour, the traffic on the motorways was severely impacted and that led to significant traffic jams.

As typical with any driver who is not sure of direction, I was using the GPS in the car. The traffic assistance feature of the GPS kept on telling us that the motorway we were on was heavily blocked due to traffic problems with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Since our destination did not have many alternate routes, and the alternate routes being equally blocked, we continued to drive on the same motorway.

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With Yogiji in my car, I was not really worried about the traffic but was not even remotely prepared for what came next… As we took the turn to the motorway (it was our last opportunity to decide whether we wanted to take an alternative route or not), barely one km ahead, we came across what looked like a huge parking area with hundreds or thousands of cars. To my horror, it was not a parking area but the motorway we were to take. Here there was no alternate route suggested by GPS nor visible, delay time flashed 30 mins.

I have been driving in Europe for the past 7-8 years (besides years of driving in India) and would consider myself a decent driver who understands the various road signs used in Europe. I kept on looking for a possibility which could allow us to get out of this jam, without breaking the rules (having paid fines couple of times before, I knew, that breaking any of the traffic rules will attract a severe penalty, and the system identifies the defaulter very quickly). Unfortunately I could not come up with any such solution and shared with Yogiji the possibility of us being stuck in that jam for some time.

And this is when the MIRACLE happened. The reason I say miracle, is because suddenly in front of us was a lane, which was empty, and we had to decide whether we wanted to use that. I looked at the GPS and it advised not to take that lane as it was taking us into a different direction, I weighed the possibilities: remaining on the track which the GPS was suggesting or take the risk of moving in to this lane, which appeared free. I chose the latter. For 2 kilometres we kept driving on this lane which suddenly changed to a proper motorway while the GPS kept on telling us to make a U-turn wherever possible.

Finally after almost 5 kilometres, the GPS also understood the MIRACLE underway, and lo and behold, we found ourselves ahead of the entire jam and closer to our destination. I just looked at Yogiji in amazement, he gave me a mysterious smile and asked with a chuckle, how did this happen?!

I was speechless.

We reached our destination before the planned time, and everything that was planned happened as it was supposed to. The incident reaffirmed my faith that with Yogiji  guiding us, only the best can happen. I am an educated professional with nearly a decade of experience of European roads and cars and rules. This, I am not telling you, just telling myself.

 

Author: Nishit Chandra

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