The real big shot

Just before eight o’clock that night, the man who had given me the massage phoned me and said, “A very important big shot is coming at eight o’clock to get a massage, so I cannot come to you.”

I said, “I didn’t tell you what a big shot I am.”

He said, “Since you are a big shot, I will come at nine o’clock.”

I asked him, “How much is the other big shot going to give you?”

He said, “The normal price — 120 rupees.”

I said, “Then I will give you 200 rupees.”

He said, “Oh, you are the real big shot!”

So he came at eight o’clock and again gave me the Chinese, Russian and general massage. What a massage! Several times he pressed my knee until I screamed. Then, like Pradhan and others, if he heard something crack, he would say that everything was cured.

He weighed about 130 or 140 pounds. When he was on my back, I said, “You are killing me! I don’t need this.”

At one point during the massage, I said to him, “I want to lose 20 pounds from my stomach.”

So he started pinching me and tapping my stomach. Then he said, “Twenty pounds? Impossible! You can lose a maximum of four pounds.”

Even after he came to my hotel, I did not show him my Galaxy of Luminaries. You don’t have to show these people anything so long as you give them enough money. In India I was ready to give the photographer 200 rupees to bring the pictures to my hotel, but he didn’t come. At least this one kept his promise.

Before the man left, just to prove I was a real big shot, I gave him not 200 but 240 rupees.

— 31 March 1983