Airplane celebrity

In the plane on the way home, the stewardess who was serving the first-class section came to the economy section where I was sitting. I had finished my food and was writing poems. She noticed that I had not used the syrup that came with my French toast. It has millions of calories, so I didn’t want to take it. She asked if she could give my syrup to somebody else. I said yes. I was very happy to give it away.

About 45 minutes later, while I was in deep meditation, the same stewardess came to me and asked, “Why do you keep writing ‘God, God, God’?”

Do I write the word ‘God’ in all my poems? Perhaps only in one of the poems I had written the word ‘God’. But she had seen it everywhere!

Then she asked me, “Did you come to Puerto Rico to attend the Conference?”

I said, “Yes, I did.”

She said, “Which presentation did you like best?”

I said to her, “I didn’t attend all the functions.”

She said, “I was there on Thursday and Friday, but I couldn’t come Saturday because of my work.”

I said, “I was only there on Saturday.”

Then she asked me who had participated on Saturday. I didn’t know the names of any of the other participants, so finally I had to say that I was one of the performers, not one of the observers.

She asked, “Can you tell me your name?”

As soon as she heard ‘Sri Chinmoy’, she exclaimed, “Mira!” Then she sat down right in front of me, and for at least an hour and fifteen minutes she asked me questions. Sometimes she was on the seat and sometimes she was sitting on the floor.

She couldn’t believe she was speaking to such a ‘great man’ and that I was answering question after question. At least two times her colleagues asked her to come and help them, but she wouldn’t go.

— 22 November 1982