This is that fortnight when The Man from Madras Musings is viewed with suspicion for no reason. Close on the heels of the airport incident, MMM learnt the value of silence in what could have been an embarrassing moment.
MMM preferred to remain silent.
was returning to our beloved city on another flight (he does get around quite a bit does he not?) and met a close friend on board. She very kindly offered to drop MMM at his house as her chauffeur was coming to receive her anyway. MMM accepted gratefully.
The journey home was uneventful except that just within a few hundred feet of chez MMM, the driver decided to jump a traffic light, and the car was duly scooped up by the long arm of the law. The policeman in charge strolled up to the driver, asked him to lower his window and gave him a long lecture on obeying rules of the road. All the while he kept gazing at MMM, in the hope no doubt that MMM would join in, so that ‘commercial’ negotiations could begin. preferred to remain silent.
MMM was sphinx-like.
The way he reasoned it out was like this – here was he, MMM, being driven home in a car that was not his, by a driver who was not his employee and in the company of a woman who was linked to him only by ties of friendship. MMM felt all of this put him in a very weak spot, and policemen, coloured in their views by the nature of their profession, are apt to be suspicious. And so MMM remained silent.
The driver got off and went away with the policeman to a nearby tree and from where MMM sat he could see fierce negotiations ongoing, punctuated every now and then by the policeman gazing hopefully at MMM. But no, MMM was sphinx-like. Eventually, tiring of the hold up, MMM’s friend got off the car, strode up to the policeman and with a few straight words settled matters. The trio was soon back and the policeman, all smiles now, waved the car onwards, but not before remarking that it was strange that the Ayya did not say anything or react in any way. He must have no doubt thought that MMM was a prize imbecile who preferred to let others deal with matters that he ought to be concerned over.
This was published in the Madras Musings. CLICK HERE to read the original.