The Water Fountain

Today I went walking at TWA. A shoeshine man was so happy to see me. I do not know how the shoeshine men survive. As I was passing by their station, I asked them, "Where do you come from?" One man said China and another said Ukraine. The tall, thin one who is from the Ukraine is not nice at all.

I have been going to walk at TWA for four years or even more. Today, for the first time, I drank water from the water fountain there. Necessity knows no bounds. It was all my fault. I thought that Pulak would bring some water for me. But Pulak did not bring any water in his car.

I said, "All right, I shall buy some." I borrowed two dollars from Pulak, but when I went to the counter, I saw that it was not open. At six-thirty it is supposed to open, but I went at ten minutes to seven and it was not open. What could I do? I walked for two rounds, which is 500 metres, and then I decided to take a drink from the water fountain.

The first two or three times I pressed the button, the water was not going inside my mouth. It was all going into my nostrils and eyes. How do people drink this water? It went everywhere else, except inside my mouth. It even went into my ear! I said, "How is it going there?" I could not make the water go into the right place.

In the meantime, Pulak had purchased some water, but he did not come upstairs to give it to me. When I got into the car to go home, I said to him, "Pulak, now you have water. Why did you not bring it?"

He said, "I gave you the money."

He was sure that because he gave me the money, I would be able to buy water. Tomorrow I will not depend on him. And I do not think I will use the water fountain again. I never had that experience before.

24 March 1998

From:Sri Chinmoy,Walking-challenging-becoming, part 1, Agni Press, 2000
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/wcb_1