A great performance³⁸

When I went into a flute store in Bukittinggi, Dhanu and a few other disciples also came in the store, and they were listening while I was trying out different flutes. Dhanu was supplying me with flutes, and I was trying to see which ones were good.

The owner was also selecting flutes for me. He wanted to show me how they sounded, so he was playing as loudly as possible. Meanwhile, I was trying to play in my civilised way. So the owner and I were giving a great performance! Finally I selected two flutes. The man used two Hindi words, so I started talking to him in Hindi. But he could not speak Hindi; he knew only two words and used them because I was an Indian.

The man asked for 10,000 rupiah for the two flutes, and I offered 5,000. The man said 7,000 and I was a little bit disappointed. Then Dhanu took out 5,000 from his wallet. I could see that the man was ready to accept 5,000, but he was not taking it. Finally, he agreed and took the money. I thought the transaction was over, so I took out 10,000 rupiah to pay Dhanu back. When the man saw my 10,000 rupiah, he thought it was for him. Then he didn’t want to sell the flutes for 5,000 and started asking for 10,000 again. What kind of problems I created!

Finally, I said that I wouldn’t pay more than 5,000, and Dhanu asked for his money back. Then the man accepted our price.