Coincidentally

Do you believe in Coincidences? The dictionary meaning of coincidentally is "in a way that results from chance despite being very unlikely." In my opinion Coincidences are nothing short of miracles. I am about to tell you a story which may make you start believing in coincidences.

My name is Rosa Angulo. I work in a Multi-National Company in California. One evening, my boss Lucy Meyers called me to her cabin. She said that the company had some urgent client meeting next week in India and I had to fly to the Bangalore office that weekend. I was excited with the opportunity to travel to India. I hurriedly packed my travel bags and made my travel list. Visiting Taj Mahal and the Mysore Palace was on the top of my travel list.

I reached Bangalore on Sunday evening. My company had booked a Hotel for me which was at a walking distance from my office. But, my company was about thirty miles away from the International Airport. My friends who had visited Bangalore before had warned me that the traffic in the city was horrible. To make matters worse, it had been raining continuously for the last several days. The state of the roads was in a really bad shape. I hailed a cab from the Airport to take me to my Hotel.

My cab driver was a guy called Ganesh. He was a friendly guy and liked to chat a lot. Although I was tired from my long journey I replied to his questions courteously. During my long journey of three hours, he asked me from which country I was? He asked me about my work and also about my family. I had been told by my friends that Indian people like to ask personal questions as a matter of culture and had asked me not to feel offended.

At one point in our conversation, he said he had a young friend who was also from the US. He told me that his friend was around sixteen years of age and he spoke fluently in the local language Kannada. At first, I thought that the young boy must have been around in the city for a long with his parents. But, I was surprised when the driver told me that the boy was all alone. He said the boy did not have any parents. He said that many years ago, the boy's father had deserted his mother and the boy who was just two years old at the time and had never returned back. Being an American, this seemed like an all too familiar story to me. How many mothers had to raise their children all alone? I felt really sorry for the young boy. The driver said that the boy's mother had passed away a few years back owing to tuberculosis. Now, the boy worked as a car mechanic in a Garage.

Ganesh kept me engaged in conversation for the next three hours and finally I reached my Hotel. I thanked him and gave him a good tip. He gave me his card and asked me to call him if I ever wanted to go out for shopping or to some other tourist place. I promised him that I would call him and accepted his card. I went to the Hotel and completed all the check-in formalities. I was very tired and went straight to sleep.

The next day, I had a successful client meeting and was able to close out the deal. My boss was pleased with my work and promised to give me a good raise that year. I was over the top of the world. To celebrate my success, I decided to visit the Taj before leaving India. So, I packed my bags and took the next flight to Delhi. From Delhi, I took the express train to Agra. The train was mostly occupied with various foreign nationals. The seat next to mine was occupied by a middle-aged man who seemed to be in his late 50's. He was a white man with a bald head, no beard, and thick grey mustaches. He took deep breaths in between his words which made me think that has was asthmatic. 

The man introduced himself as Bob. Bob asked me if this was my first visit to the Taj. I said, "Yes". "It is a beautiful place. I visit it every year," he replied. We then talked casually and he said, “You know Rosa, I have been coming to India for the last ten years. I am searching for my lost wife and son. I have been looking for them all over India for the last ten years."

Bob said that many years back he had come to India on a business trip. He wanted to import Indian Tea leaves and start a new business in the US by manufacturing Tea. He had come to the trip with his wife Mary and a two-year-old son. One evening, he received a call from his business partner that there was some legal hurdle in procuring the tea factory license and his signature would be needed in person. Bob had invested a lot of money into this venture. So, he asked his wife to stay in the hotel for a few days till he returned. He said that he did not have enough money to pay for the flight tickets for all of them so he asked her to stay in the Hotel and promised that he would return to her within a week's time.

Bob took a flight to the US with a transit from Dubai. During the flight transit, his luggage got mixed up with someone else and he was detained by the Customs officials. The customs officials held him for smuggling narcotics which is a very serious felony in Dubai. Bob pleaded with them to let him go and told that there was a mistake. But, he was arrested and put into prison. He was kept in the Prison for four years and was finally released when the real smuggler was caught. During this time, Bob was not able to contact his wife or son. He wrote letters to the hotel where he had left his wife and son during his Prison stay but none of the letters were answered back.

Once Bob was released, he rushed back to India in search of his wife and son. The hotel people told him that his wife had left a couple of weeks after he had left them as she did not have enough money left to pay them. Bob had left his wife in Delhi. So, he filed a missing complaint with the Delhi Police and also reported the matter to the US consulate. But, even after searching for several days he could not locate them.

So dejected, Bob finally returned to the US. He was shocked to learn that his business partner Alex had confiscated all his properties and Bank money to pay for the Tea factory. So, he filed a legal petition and got entangled in a bitter legal dispute which he finally won. 

Bob kept returning to India every year to search for his missing wife and son and kept checking with the concerned authorities. When Bob had finished his sad story, I suddenly remembered my conversation with the cab driver in Bangalore. I told Bob about my conversation with the cab driver and his eyes lit up with hope. He begged me to share the cab driver's number. I shared it happily and even promised to accompany Bob to Bangalore.

The next day we went to Bangalore and I called up Ganesh. I told him that I would like to go out for shopping and that I was accompanied by a friend. When Ganesh came to the Hotel, I told him that I wished to see his American friend. He happily agreed. He took us to a car garage and pointed out to a tall slim lad who was working on the engine of a car. The boy had jet black hair and had grease all over his face and clothes. I looked at Bob. His old eyes were moist and I could see that his hands were shivering with nervousness. "Is that my son?” he whispered to me.

Ganesh called out to the boy," Tom, you have visitors." The boy looked up and smiled. "Hi, Ganesh says you wanted to see me," he said smiling. "Yes, we do," I told him and asked him to sit on a chair.

We then asked him about his mom and how he had come to be in Bangalore. He told that his father had deserted them when he was just two-years-old and never returned back. Not having any money, his mother was forced to work in a club as a dancer in Bangalore. He cried when he said that his mother had died a few years back and he was very angry at his father. Bob asked him the name of his mother. "Mary Stuggart," Tom replied. As he heard the name Bob bit his fingernails and let out a cry, “Oh God, Oh my God. I am sorry Mary. I am really sorry." 

Tom was very shocked to hear this reaction from Bob. He asked us who really were. So, I narrated the whole story to Tom who was too dumbfounded to react. Finally, the father and the son hugged each other and cried. I cried too and so did Ganesh. I had just witnessed the greatest Coincidence of my life. Or should I call it a miracle?

The End