Describe the tragic event involving the author's friend that nearly made him cancel his trip to Shirdi.

On the very day the author was scheduled to travel to Shirdi, his resolve wavered due to a tragic event that happened to a close friend in Lonavala. As recounted in Chapter 2, this friend's only son, who was healthy and virtuous, was suddenly struck with a severe fever while in the fresh air of Lonavala. Despite exhausting all human remedies and employing divine threads and rituals, the boy's condition did not improve. The friend even had his own Guru sit by the son's side in a desperate attempt to avert the crisis, but it was all in vain, and the son ultimately died. Witnessing this terrible situation and the failure of even a Guru's presence to save the boy caused the author to second-guess his own journey.