The stuck car

It takes three and a half hours to drive to Madras Airport from Pondicherry. My plane was supposed to leave at 7:30 in the morning, so I said that at 2:30 I would leave. Of course, my two brothers would accompany me. We were getting ready to leave when my friend who was supposed to drive us to Madras started screaming, “Chinmoy, Chinmoy, come and help me!”

I asked, “What kind of help?” I was upstairs packing my things, and I had to come down. “What is wrong?” I asked him.

Only ten metres away from our house was a big hole. His left wheel had entered into the hole and the car was stuck. He could not get it out, but he made a suggestion: “I will turn on the motor and then you have to lift up the car.”

I said, “I do not have the strength. My back pain is killing me! I cannot.”

“Then it is all a bluff,” my friend said. “You never lifted all those cars and other things!”

I said, “I never did it this way. I did it with a machine, with a special apparatus so that I could take the weight on my shoulders. But this way I will not be able to lift the car. It is so huge!”

“Then you be at the wheel,” he answered.

I said, “I have not driven for years. God alone knows what I will do! I cannot do that.”

O God, his whole wheel was inside the ditch. Now somebody had to come along and witness our misfortune. The witness was the Florida lady! Suddenly she appeared there. Luckily she was not helping me. I was trying desperately, but I could not lift the car out of the hole. The Florida lady did not even try. What were we going to do?

My friend was screaming for assistance. Then three young men from the neighbourhood came. They were enjoying the commotion but they did not offer to help us. Such wonderful people! First my friend scolded and insulted them for behaving in such an unkind way. That did not work. Then he was very pitifully begging them to help us. When they saw his pitiful face, all of them came to our rescue. And when four of us tried to lift the car, easily it came out of the hole. So my driver-friend was very happy.