Of Belief, Bus and Botaah

Belief serves us in the most unexpected ways, and sometimes while travelling in a bus.

I was making my way back from Shillong to my hometown early this month. The weather was unforgiving, with heavy rain lashing against the windows, and the usually busy roads were eerily empty due to the elections. At 9:10 PM, I received a call from Chetry Da, asking where I would be boarding the bus. I absolutely love traveling with him; on most occasions, I share a seat in the cabin, where we spend the time talking or just jamming to random songs by our beloved Zubeen Da. Despite the conditions, I somehow made it to Khanapara and secured my seat as we embarked on our journey towards Tinsukia. Whether it was the impact of the elections or something else, things felt far from the usual routine.

Running behind schedule, our bus finally pulled over for a late-night dinner stop at Jakhalabandha around 1:00 AM. When we hit the road again, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind. I plugged in my headphones, started scrolling through my phone, and reminded myself of a personal tradition. The Haldhibari Buri Mai Than was coming up along the route; whenever I travel this way, I always make it a point to offer my prayers as the bus passes by, and I was determined not to miss it this time. But exhaustion has a funny way of creeping in. Despite my best intentions, I drifted off into a deep sleep without even realizing it.

Then, something inexplicable happened. Out of nowhere, my sleep broke abruptly. I sat up, disoriented for a second, and realized that in exactly two minutes, the temple was going to pass right by my window.

To fully grasp how strange this was, you have to understand the setting. The temple sits quietly in the middle of a dense, pitch-black forest within Kaziranga. The rain was still pouring heavily, my window curtains were drawn shut, and I was seated on the complete opposite side of the bus. The odds of waking up at that exact moment, in those exact conditions, were astronomically low. It was an absolute shocker to open my eyes right at the nick of time.S ome might call it a mere coincidence. It’s easy to write it off as a lucky break or a random twitch in the body's internal clock.

But I call it belief.

I got to offer my prayers in the quiet dark of that moving bus because, ultimately, God wanted me to do so. Sometimes, faith is the only compass that wakes you up exactly when you need to be present.

In the end, I realized that the true compass of that journey wasn’t a needle or a map, it was ‘Botaahe Botaahe’. As Mrinmoy Sir always wanted us to feel at our very core, the Botaah—the wind—is more than just weather; it is a guiding force. If you carry belief and hold onto faith, that wind will always nudge you awake and carry you toward your right destination, even through the darkest stretches of Kaziranga. My internal clock didn't wake me; the Botaah did, ensuring I was present for the moment I had promised to keep.

By Shankhadeep Dhar