Phoenix, Arizona - The Actual July 24, 2008 Post

Today, Baba gave me an indication of how if we call out to him in earnest, he is there for us and will show us the way.

I arrived in Phoenix, Arizona at 1 AM this morning, delayed 5 hours coming in from Philadelphia. After just 3 hours of sleep, I had meetings all day and sometime in the middle of the day, I had to excuse myself from the client meeting I was in to visit the rest room and the reason I visited it was not good. Something I had eaten had played havoc in my stomach and I had a severe diarrhoea. By 3 PM I was totally exhausted. I was lucky to get an hour's worth of sleep before I packed up and left my hotel to get back to the airport for a 1025 PM flight back to Philadelphia, what they call the Red Eye.

I had just returned the rental car at the airport counter of Thrifty and was on the bus that took passengers from the Rental Car Center to the airport terminal. I looked at my watch and it was just 8 PM, enough time for me to get some dinner at the airport. Of course, from the time I had visited the bathroom this afternoon, I had not eaten anything. I was unsure. But now I was hungry. I closed my eyes, thinking what it is that I would have liked to eat at that moment. I was in simply no mood for Burgers or French Fries or Pizzas. That instant, I was reminded of Pongal. How good it would be to have some Venn Pongal and Buttermilk or loose curds. I closed my eyes and prayed to Baba, that if I could have that for dinner, I would consider myself truly blessed.

I got to the terminal in 5 minutes and after checking in and passing security, I walked on towards gate A 13, the designated one for my flight. One the way, I scanned all the eateries and the restaurants. As always, there was Pizza Hut, a Steak house, a Starbucks and a couple of other sandwich places. And there was this one restaurant. I was not sure what I was going to get there, but I went in and sat myself down. The waitress came over and asked me what I wanted and I told her I was a vegetarian and asked her what she had to recommend. Honestly, I was stumped by her response. She asked me what time my flight was leaving? Surprised though I was, I told her I had plenty of time but asked here why she was asking. She immediately suggested that I should probably go to the Mexican restaurant that was located on another aisle which led to a bunch of other gates and which was perhaps a five minute walk from where I was. You could get a cheese quesadila or something she suggested.

I agreed with her and walked out. I walked back to the lobby area, found the aisle she was talking about and used 2 escalators to get to the restaurant she had mentioned. Once there, I noticed that while they had a main dining area, they also had this small take away counter, which was selling stuff at a lower price and also, something on the menu just jumped out at me. "Vegetable Fajita Rice Bowl" it announced and it was only 5$.45. I immediately fell in line and was impatient till I got to the counter. Once i had ordered I was totally restless till I saw my order number being called.

And what did I see? A bowl full of rice, with black beans, peppers, salsa and sour cream. Talk about Venn Pongal - Rice, Lentils, Pepper, Thakkali Chutney and Thairu.

My flight is boarding right now and I need to run, but I even as I let out a burp of happiness as I walked away from that dinner, I had promised myself, I was going to create this page and write this post.

And who else do I have to thank but Baba, not only for the dinner, but also for the perfect timing that allowed me to do this.

Now boarding Zones 5. Zone 6 will be next...

Glory to Sai. Peace be to all.