The rickshaw driver38

In Pondicherry, a rickshaw driver became my friend. He lived near our family’s house, and each day he would take me around for an hour or two when I went shopping. I told him, “You have Mother’s picture on your rickshaw, so you can’t deceive me.”

When I go out, usually I leave my bag with my passport and all my American money inside the house. On one particular day, a new maid was working in the house and my sister had to go somewhere. Since the lock on the safe is not satisfactory, she took out the bag and went looking for me. I said, “Since the lock is not good, let me take the bag with me while I go shopping.”

So I went shopping for saris. Then I realised that I didn’t have the bag with me. I had left it in the rickshaw!

The driver and I had agreed to meet at a fixed place. But, O God, when I came to that place, the rickshaw driver was nowhere to be found! I was looking this side and that side for him. Finally, I saw him sleeping on the front of the rickshaw, waiting in the shade about 70 or 80 metres away.

I asked him, “Where is my bag?”

He answered, “It is on the seat in the back. You didn’t take it with you.”

Since he bad been fast asleep, somebody easily could have come and taken the bag out of the rickshaw, or out of curiosity the driver could have looked in the bag. But when I looked inside the bag, everything was just as I had left it.

Rickshaw drivers get two rupees per hour, so I was supposed to give him three or four rupees. Instead I gave him a 50-rupee note. He couldn’t believe it.


LS 129. 2 March 1986