My name is Murali Krishna from Hyderabad.My wife and I are ardent devotees of BABA. So far, we have been blessed with at least one visit of Shirdi every year for the last 7 years or so. Though we experience Baba and His divine presence in every walk of our life, I am writing this particular miracle happened with my wife where BABA Himself extended His holy hand to save her from drowning in the river Ganga.
It was May 2012, I was working in Delhi, when our company arranged a weekend family outing an adventure trip to Shivpuri in the Shivalik ranges about 50 kilometers up from Rishikesh. At this place the Ganga leaves the mountains and prepares herself to begin a long journey through the plains. My wife and I along with our two kids were part of a group of more than 50, started our trip on a Thursday evening from Delhi by two mini buses. Significantly, my wife had just completed the Sapthaha Parayana of SAI SATCHARITRA the day before we started on the trip.
As part of the trip we planned to take part in the adventure sport of white water rafting on the river Ganga. Rafting is a challenging recreational outdoor activity of using an inflatable raft to navigate the river. This is usually done on white water or different degrees of rough water, in order to thrill and excite the raft passengers also known as rafters. It is considered an extreme sport, as it can be very dangerous. Saturday morning after breakfast we started to the bank of the river from where our rafting adventure of about 20 KM would start. We reached the river bank at around 9 AM. There were five rafts waiting for us. Each raft can accommodate eight persons and there will be a guide who guides us through the trip. The operators explained the difficulties and risks that may arise while doing the rafting, DOs and DON’Ts and safety precautions, etc. We all were got equipped with life jackets and with a paddle in our hands embarked onto the rafting experience. My wife and I had got onto one raft along with six others.
It was quite pleasant and beautiful morning on River Ganga. We started our journey downwards with the flow of the water and it was quite smooth initially. We were leaning into the river touching the water with our hands and sprinkling on to other co-rafters who also started the journey with us. The water was so pure and chilled. After sailing for some time through the plains the guide has warned us about the difficulties and risks that we may face as we go further downwards through the rapids. [Rapids were the rocky narrow paths through which the river flow very fast often creating big tides. These tides are so strong they sometimes turn the raft upside down and it needs accurate coordination between the rafters to sail safely through the rapids.]
We continued our journey further with some warning bells started ringing in our minds about the rapids. Sooner we reached a grade 3 rapid. With less difficulty and lot more excitement, we sailed through the rapid. We all celebrated in joy, quite unaware of the bigger danger ahead, a grade 4 rapid, named Roller Coaster. As we approach the next rapid, we started hearing loud noise that the water was making as it flows through the rapid. As we got nearer to the rapid we could see some very big tides rising against the flow of water. We continued paddling as per the instructions by the guide and quickly got to the start of the rapid.
Just that we entered the rapid we saw a huge tide rising and lifting the raft from the front left corner and within a fraction of a second the raft has got lifted so high and turned over by the tide. I was thrown into the water and was struggling to even breathe underneath the water. After galloping the sacred water a couple of times, I came out and got hold of the raft as the life jacket helped me float on the water. Then I realized except the guide and two other men rest of us all fell into the water and one by one started surfacing within a few seconds thanks to the life jackets. Still none of us could see my wife. We all had started worrying about her. Only after a tense 15 to 20 seconds, she came out of the water just beside the raft struggling hard to breathe. Immediately the guide pulled her onto the raft getting hold of her life jacket. She was really struggling hard to breathe still.
Trying to become normal my wife had started recounting those difficult few moments – how much she struggled and wondered how she came out? She said that after falling into the water, she had got trapped under the raft and couldn’t push it either side to help herself coming out. She was struggling hard to breathe as she had never done swimming before. For a moment she thought that it was that last few moments of her life and fortunately the natural thought of our beloved SAINATH came to her mind and she prayed BABA, “You are the only savior”. Just then, a hand got hold of her right hand and pulled her up from inside the water. Sooner she could touch the top edge of the raft. As soon as she got hold of the raft, she lost hold of the divine hand. She said that she could clearly felt the touch of the hand and thought that it was me who pulled her up holding her hand. When she asked me if it was me, I said no. I myself was struggling for some time and then did not have any idea where she was inside the water. Then we asked others, but all of them said no, they did not help either. Nobody had any idea where she was when she was inside the water. There was nobody else around us at that time. That too in the middle of the rapid there was no chance anybody from outside our group to be there. It should be none other than our beloved SAINATH, who could come there at that moment and save her from drowning.
BABA is everywhere and comes to our rescue if we have faith and call Him whole heartedly. It was like another birth for her given by our BABA. More than the hazardous experience she went through at that time, she felt very fortunate to get the divine touch of BABA’s holy hand. She was truly blessed as BABA Himself came and held her hand to save her from drowning. We would always be so grateful to BABA throughout our lives for saving her life. Thank You BABA for always being with us. Everything we have today is a kind blessing from YOU, OM SAI RAM.