The story continues

I went to the restaurant to eat. I ordered rose milk, masala dosa and tea. The street was right in front of me, not even ten metres away. I saw that there were many drivers keeping their cycles and rickshaws at that place. The restaurant gave me very fast service. In three or four minutes they gave me the food, and another ten minutes I took to finish my meal. I ate very happily.

When I went back to the rickshaw, the fellow told me his sad story: he had gone out to eat. When he came back, somebody had taken away the cushion or seat of the rickshaw. People were saying that the place was illegal, so the police had come and taken it away.

I looked at the seat inside the rickshaw. Now it was a hard surface, and it was so uneven. I said, “I will not be able to sit there. I am giving you the money because the seat is gone. I will find another rickshaw.”

He said, “No, if you do not go with me to prove that I was waiting for you, the police will not give me my seat back.”

I said, “What am I going to do with this fellow? He is begging me. If I do not go with him to the police station, he will not get the pillow back.”

The police station was out of my way. It was God knows where! We were driving and driving, and I was being tortured because of the hard seat. I have such a bad back. Sometimes I tried not to sit; I stayed two or three inches above the wood because it was hurting me. And in three places there were nails! Usually the pillow covers everything. This is how I was enjoying my journey.

I decided that since the police had taken the pillow away, whatever the police charged, I would give the money to the driver. He also had a bald head. I said, “Poor fellow.”

We went to the police station and asked the police for the pillow. The police scolded and insulted him: “As if we have nothing else to do than to bring your pillow here!” Then I spoke to the police chief. He said, “No, we do not do this kind of thing.”

Some people had told the driver that the police took it away, but it was not true. Then I was begging him, “Please, this time take me to my house.”

For another fifteen minutes we drove on, and I could not sit because it was all wood and nails. He did not get his pillow. I think the other fellow, the first driver, followed us and removed the pillow to punish me because I did not wait for him. When we reached my home at long last, instead of thirty, I gave the driver fifty rupees. I said, “God knows when he will get his pillow.”