[The following is kinda sorta based on a true story, but some fiction may have sneaked in. YOU WILL NEVER KNOW! HAHAHhahaa...
Also, names may have been changed to protect identities. ]
Aditya paced around nervously in the hallway, knocking on David's door every few seconds.
"Dude! We're getting late! The train is at 3:15; it's past 1 o' clock now and the station is almost 2 hours away!" he screamed.
"Give me twooooooo minutes", came David's muffled voice from inside.
Twenty minutes later, David finally emerged from his room, and the 'gang of four' (David, Aditya and two others) set out on their way to the bus stop, which was a 10-minute walk away.
Walking towards the bus stop, they passed by a friend's house. "Hey, let's just quickly visit Ellie before we leave," David suggested. Aditya protested vehemently, saying they were already late and could ill-afford even a short diversion such as this.
The rest of the group sided with David and said "it's better we visit Ellie", but to save time they decided to not to enter the house and just greet Ellie from outside.
"In any case, the bus stop is just right there," they said, pointing to the bus stop that was now visible, less than 50 meters away. Aditya stubbornly refused to go, and just waited for the other three to come back.
During the time the trio was at Ellie's house, a bus passed by. This meant they had to wait about 5 more minutes for the next bus. (Now 5 minutes is not a lot, but when you're cutting it as close as they were, every minute counts.)
[The details for the next hour and three quarters are not very important for this story, so let's just flash-forward to Pi-time (3:14 pm). ]
The gang jumped out of the local train at a station which was across the road from their target station. With hardly a minute to go, they made a mad dash through the heavily crowded platform, roads and commuter subway, towards the train.
A couple minutes later, the train sounded its whistle and left the station. David and the others had caught the train with only seconds to spare; Aditya could not push through the crowd fast enough and was left behind.
---
Now here's the thing:
"Ellie's house" mentioned in the story was actually a Ganesha temple.
A believer would argue that since Aditya didn't go pray to Ganesha, He did not remove the "obstacles" (the people on the station) from his path. Aditya had it coming; he deserved to be left behind.
Pragmatists would say that had the bunch not made a stop at the temple, they would have caught an earlier bus and made it to the station well in time. They wouldn't have to sprint through the crowd and the above point would be rendered moot.
Who is right? I guess this is one of the things to which the answer we will never know.
