It took me more than expected to get the boarding pass from the Air India counter at the Indira Gandhi International Airport for the flight no. AI 101 bound for JFK Airport, New York. I reached Delhi from Kolkata at about 10.30pm. I came out of the IGI New Delhi to meet Sri Badal Bachi, a great devotee of Bhagavan and his wife who came all the way from the Chittaranjan Park to see me off for the US. I entered the Airport again at about 11 pm thinking it would be very early but I was surprised to find such a huge queue. There were about 8 Air India counters meant for passengers travelling for New York and Chigaco and at that time, there were about 200 passengers. I took my boarding pass with a seat 22 K ( window right side) and went for the immigration. I had to fill a regular form describing my name, destination, passport number, my address in the US, purpose of visit etc. This process was relatively faster and it made me happy that I could get through without any difficulty. The next step was security clearing. I had heard some very scary stories about this US security clearing but found nothing special. My gate was 26. I walked slowly from the security to the 26th gate and found a big crowd again near the 26th. By this time, boarding announcements for AI 101 was on. I looked at the watch, it was 1.15am. didn’t realized how fast time went by. The only special arrangement I noticed for these US planes were, they were checking again just before boarding. I wanted to walk around a little bit because the thought of sitting on the plane for 15 hours was haunting my kidneys severely but there was barely any time. I entered the plane and was in my seat. It was now time to call my brothers spread over different parts of India to say goodbye. There were others who were calling me since yesterday and I wanted to call them as well totally forgetting that it was around 1.40 am now. Anyway, I called my brothers, the time I was in the middle of call with Bhaskaranandaji,  the plane started to move. It was 1.45 am of the 15th of April, the moment for which I was waiting for long. Though the plane started off, I didn’t want to hung up. His last words that I could hear was, ” may you succeed, may there be the victory of the Lord, of truth, Jay Bhagavan……..”

The plane didn’t stop just before the take off, it was a continuous motion something which is very unusual, the speed increased….more and even more…everything was passing very fast. People around me were praying for a safe journey. Within seconds, we were in the air. I looked outside to offer my humble pranams to my motherland, the land of the divine, of the lords, the land where my beloved Master lives. New Delhi was reduced into very tiny light and after a while there were fogs and everything vanished. I was on my way to the other end of the world, into America..