My friend becomes my bodyguard

I was supposed to leave at five o’clock in the afternoon. By three o’clock I had been to see my sister four times. Around five o’clock I was upstairs putting everything in my suitcase. Since my sister was not there, I had to do everything myself. I had no help. Somebody knocked at the door downstairs. At that hour, the Florida lady had to come!

My brothers opened the door and she came in and sat down. Then my two brothers came to talk to me upstairs. In such a hurry I was getting ready.

My saviour was the driver, who is a very close friend of mine. He dislikes the Florida lady like anything. He opened the front door to take my suitcase from the staircase. He called out, “Chinmoy, why are you so late?”

I said, “I am late because I have no sister here.”

He was shouting from downstairs; I was shouting from upstairs. In Bengali we were shouting at each other. It was all friendship. When the lady saw him, she went out of the house because she knew that he would insult her. She was standing outside. On my previous visit, when she came, I finally gave her some money. This time also she came with the expectation of getting some money.

Last time my friend saw that I was forced to give her something because she was not coming out of our house. At the door, I had given the Florida lady two hundred dollars. This time my friend was my bodyguard. He would not allow me to give any money to her. I came down with some money in my hand, but he ordered me to enter into the car, and I obeyed him. The Florida lady was across the street, so she did not get a chance to get the money.

My two brothers came out. I was very affectionately saying goodbye to them, and the lady was so miserable that I could not give her money. Perhaps she cursed me and that is why everything went wrong at Madras Airport.

From:Sri Chinmoy,My express visit to India, Agni Press, 1995
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/evi