The computer error

Inwardly I said, “Ashrita can never make a mistake! He is so smart. He will never fail me. How can Ashrita do this?”

The man went on, “Your name is not there. You cannot board the plane.”

I replied, “Definitely my name is there. I was supposed to reconfirm from Pondicherry, not from here. It is not a matter of reconfirmation. I have got the ticket. I am supposed to go from Calcutta to Madras without any difficulty.”

He said, “No, your name is not there. What can I do?”

I said, “Absurd!”

Then he took me to four different places, and they all said the same thing, that my name was not there.

I said, “Thank you. What is the matter? Now tell me what is there.”

He said, “On the ticket it says Ghose, but there is no Ghose.”

“How can it be that there is no Ghose?”

“We have Chose, but not Ghose,” he said.

It was clearly an error.

I told the man, “That must be my name, only instead of ‘G’ it has been written with a ‘C’. Is it my fault that it is spelt incorrectly?”

The man said, “It is not our fault. We can’t go against the computer.”

I was becoming exasperated. I said to him, “You cannot go against the computer? Look at my passport, and look at me. Is there any similarity?”

Then he said, “But your middle name is missing on the computer.” I said, “If my middle name is not there in the computer, what am I going to do? My middle name is Kumar, but if my first and last names are there, why do you need my middle name?”

Then he went on, “But here it is written Sri Chinmoy.”

I said, “This is my name.”

“Oh, so now your name is Sri Chinmoy,” came the reply.

Finally, I got disgusted. I never carry anything with me, but this time I had one newspaper article from the last day in Myanmar. There were pictures of me with their highest Buddhist monk and the Minister of Religion. The whole front page was dedicated to me. I opened it and said, “Look at this. My name is Sri Chinmoy. I do not need Ghose.”

He looked at the article and recognised my picture. What a rogue he was! My passport picture he did not value, but he valued the silly newspaper picture. Then he agreed, “Oh no, Ghose is not necessary.”

After such a long time he allowed me to board. I was laughing to myself, “My passport picture has no value, but the silly newspaper picture has value because I am with some big shot. This always happens.”