The flat tyre

To go back to the airport I took a taxi. The taxi fare in Bermuda starts with eighty cents. I never look at the meter, but this time, after we had covered fifty metres, I happened to look at it. O God! It said $3.10. I said to the driver, "I just entered into the cab. How can it be $3.10 already?"

He said, "Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry." Then he changed the meter back to eighty cents. We covered another two hundred metres and boom! We had a flat tire.

The driver, an old man, said, “You are a bad man; that is why we got a flat tire.”

I said, "Either I am bad or you are bad or both of us are bad. What am I going to do?"

He asked me to give him a hand. What could I do? I could only get out of the taxi. I got out, but it took him such a long time. He was an old man, and he could barely get out of the car, but I could not give him any help. I just looked at him sympathetically.

I saw two or three taxis going from Georgetown towards the airport, but they would not stop. Nobody was sympathetic. After some time I raised my hand and one particular man stopped. As soon as he saw us he started singing, "Flat tire!" He was amused.

I said, "Just take me to the airport for whatever you want to charge."

He said, "Three dollars."

I gave him three dollars, and he said, "It will take only five minutes. I also am going there."

From:Sri Chinmoy,Salutations, numbers 9-12, Agni Press, 1983
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/slt_3