Pavitra Kanse is from Mumbai, India and a student at Cal State University Northridge. She believes in Karma. This is her God Shot.

I remember the day so vividly. Two of my friends from University had accompanied me for a day trip to visit my cousin in Long Beach. We had a lovely time, but come evening, we needed to head back. If we were lucky and the traffic was light, we would make it back to campus in an hour. I was in the passenger seat, while my one friend drove and the other sat directly behind him. My friend in the back was wearing his seatbelt. He always wore it in the backseat and we always made fun of him for it. It was all in good fun, but honestly we never saw the point.

Shortly after we merged onto the freeway, my eyes caught a glimpse of a bright light. We were in the far right lane going about 65 miles per hour in our rental car. It took me a second to realize that the light was coming from a huge, out of control, cargo truck that was headed directly at us. In that very moment, time stood still and three thoughts flashed through my mind. First, “I am going to die and my parents are going to see my dead body.” Secondly, “How are my parents going to come all the way from India to Los Angeles if they don’t have their Visas yet?” And lastly, “If I survive the crash, I have to get out of this car before it blows up.” Then the airbags deployed, and everything turned into a milky white blur.

When our car finally stopped, my friends got out from their sides, and I jumped out from the driver’s seat. Shocked, we looked around. We had been dragged across six lanes of the freeway and the car was now facing the opposite direction. Despite the impact, we hadn’t rolled over and we were alive.

Within minutes, the police and the firefighters were on the scene. They asked me where I had been sitting and I told them the passenger’s seat. They asked me again, and again I told them. Was I injured or bleeding anywhere on my body, they wanted to know? I checked myself and I was fine. No cuts, no bleeding and no pain. This time they spoke more slowly, “Are you sure you were in the passenger’s seat?”

Frankly, it baffled me why they kept asking me the same question over and over again. So, I went around to the side of the car and what I saw, I couldn’t quite comprehend. The entire door of the passenger seat where I had been sitting was gone and all that remained was the frame. The door had ended up inside the cargo truck’s hood. The passenger side where I had been just moments before had absorbed the entire impact of the crash. The rest of the car looked shiny and new. The section of the dashboard that was right in front of me had been pushed all the way down toward the floor of my seat. I studied it and wondered how it was possible that I didn’t lose my legs. The dashboard was were my legs would have been, and yet, my legs were perfectly fine.

Shortly before the accident, I did something that I had done countless times before. I changed the radio station. Only this time, I had shifted my body and tilted my knees to the left side of the car, towards the radio. My legs were on the left and the truck came from the right. When the truck hit us, the dashboard came towards me, but my legs and my life were saved because I had tilted my body to hear a new song.

I am a follower of the Hindu faith. My faith teaches that if you do something good for someone, the good will make its way back to you in some form. Your actions are your karma and ultimately what follows you in life. I believe that whatever good karma my parents and I ever did, came together at that very moment to save my life and spare my legs. As I eyed the wreckage, feeling very much alive and well, I knew that I was standing in the middle of my God Shot, my karmic gift. This was also when I realized that the accident happened on a day that was already sacred to me. It was my parents 32nd wedding anniversary when I walked away from the accident unscathed. And, whenever I focus on the significance of that, I just smile and think, yes, of course it was.

The passenger’s side of the car where Pavitra was sitting.

The truck that hit Pavitra and her friends sits behind her car.

Pavitra with her parents, Suresh and Pushpanjali.