THE MIRACLE OF THE LOST FLASH DRIVE

One day in February 2003 I was walking through Varkala towards my hut. En route to my hut was a little palm-leave grocery shop run by an Indian. I didn’t like him very much because once he had overcharged me and cheated me out of an extra 20 rupees for a bottle of coconut oil. Since then I never bought anything in his little shop and whenever I passed his shop he would always look very angry at me and I would look very angry at him. However, that day I decided to be like Mother Teresa and forgive the bloody bastard for cheating me. He was surprised that I entered his shop to buy a bar of Cadburry chocolate.
“So you’re not angry at me anymore?”
“No. I am a yogi. I thought it is ridiculous to manifest angry behaviour as a yogi, just because you overcharged me for a stupid amount of only 20 rupees. I would like to apologize to you for my stupid behaviour. I should have known better. I hope you accept my apologies.”
The Indian was dumbstruck. “O madam-ji, you are quite something! How nice of you. For months you don’t speak to me, don’t buy anything in my shop and just ignore me or give me the evil eye. And now you apologize to me because I cheated you? I was the one who was wrong. I was so greedy that I cheated a yogi. It’s like slapping a nun in the face and call her a whore. I am so sorry. Please, you can have the chocolate bar for free. I am so sorry.”
“Thank you, but I do intend to pay for the chocolate, but I will give you 20 rupees less for it. Is that okay?”
“Of course madam-ji.”
I opened my wallet and paid the price of the chocolate bar minus 20 rupees.
After I left the shop I organized my bank notes in my wallet, 10 rupee notes, 20 rupee notes, 100 rupee notes, all in correct order. I moved on to my hut. As I arrived at my hut I sat down on my bed and switched on my laptop computer. Earlier that day I had received a message from my publisher in Holland that he expected me to send him the final version of my book Pantau in India as he needed to send it to the editor. I wanted to go through the book on my laptop for the last time before I would email it to him. The moment my laptop started loading Microsoft Word, I noticed there was smoke coming from the keyboard. Within a minute the laptop was on fire. I quickly took it outside and threw it onto the ground. An Indian who was watering the palm trees around my hut aimed the hose onto my computer and the fire went out instantly. Half of the computer had already melted away.
I took in a deep breath and temporarily put my 168 Bodhisattva Vows on hold. “Jesus fucking Christ hanging from the cross for God sake Goddammit son of bitch from hell Maria Magdalena and all the apostles Pontis Pilates Judas Jesus Marcus Jesus holy Christ for God sake son of a bitch!" I said. I continued by saying, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…..FUCK!!!!!!!”
My Tibetan friend Tenzin came out of his hut and stared at me and then at my computer. “O. That is not good,” he said.
“No, Tenzin. I am completely fuuuuuu…I am completely having a problem. My book is in my computer and I have a deadline. I need to send it to my publisher today.”
“Don’t you have a backup?”
I looked up into the sky. “Thank you Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! Of course I have a backup. Every day I back everything up on my little flash-drive. I keep it in my wallet. My whole life is on that pen-drive-thingy.”
I got my bag and took out my wallet. I opened my wallet. “What?” I couldn’t find my flash-drive. I turned my wallet upside down, coins and banknotes and business cards fell onto the floor but no flash-drive.”
“What? WHAT?? Where the fuuuuuu…where on earth is my flash-drive?!” I almost got a heart attack. “What the bloody coconut is going on? Tenzin! All my photos and letters and all my novels are on my computer and on my flash-drive.”
“There is a computer guy on Beach Road who fixes computers in the internet café. Take your laptop overthere. Maybe he can take out your hard-drive and retrieve the information from it.”

"Tenzin, you're so smart. Thank you."

Half an hour later the computer guy on Beach Road opened the melted remains of my laptop and had a good look at the charred hard-drive. “Sorry madam-ji, but your hard-drive is gone. It’s burned beyond repair and the disks are gone. There is no way to fix it or get the information from it. It’s badly burned.”
I burst out into tears. Two years of work had gone up in flames. On my way back to the room I passed the shop of the Indian who sold me a chocolate bar with a 20 rupee discount.
“Madam, why are you crying?”
“I am a writer. I wrote a 360-page book on my little computer. I have to send it to my publisher today, but my computer went up in flames and now my book is gone. What’s more; my whole life was on that computer. Photos, emails, letters, everything. I made a backup every day, but I lost my flash-drive as well. So now I have nothing. Everything is gone and I won’t be publishing a book this year. My career is gone. I have to do everything all over again. I might as well kill myself. My publisher will kick me out, rip our contract to pieces. He has already printed his sales catalogue with my book featured on the cover. A book that no longer exists. Letters have been sent our to the media. Two hundred journalists are waiting for me to talk about my book. My flight to Holland has already been booked. This is a major disaster. I might as well be dead.”
“What is a flash-drive, madam-ji?”
“It’s a little thingy, a bit of metal and a bit a plastic and it looks like… well, it looks like a flash-drive. You stick it into the back of a computer and you can transfer information from your computer onto the flash-drive. So if your computer burns down, you still have the information on the flash-drive.”
The Indian opened the drawer of his wooden till and took out a little plastic thing with a bit of metal sticking out of it. “Does a flash-drive look like this?”
I had a look at it. “Yes. And that is indeed my flash-drive!” I burst out into tears.
"Madam-ji. When you walked away, you were fidgeting with your wallet and all your banknotes. And there was this little kid that saw how something fell out of your wallet. And this kid came to me to show me what had fallen out of your wallet and he said he could perhaps sell it for a few rupees. He had no idea what it was but it looked expensive. And then I said, you should not steal from that yogi because it will give you bad karma. And then he said that he didn’t steal it, but that it had just fallen out of your wallet. And then I said, you should give it back to her, and then he said, I am not going to give it back to that white woman, those people already have enough money. I am going to sell it. And then he ran away, and then I ran after him for about a kilometre, because that little bastard was very fast, but I caught up with him and smacked the hell out of that kid and took away that plastic thing with the metal thing sticking out of it, because it belonged to you.”
I stared at him. When I had calmed down I said to him. “Rajeev, can I ask you something?”
“Yes, madam-ji.”
“For months we’ve been angry with each other, right?”
“Yes, madam-ji. Because I overcharged you for 20 rupees.”
“If I had not made up you with earlier today, would you have done all that for me, running after that little kid and given me back that flash-drive?”
“Of course not. I thought: that woman is not a real yogi because she doesn’t understand that I am a poor bastard trying to make a bit of money for my family. I have 9 children, 2 of them sick in hospital and I am desperate for money. Almost every day you come to my shop to buy some coconut oil or a chocolate bar and then I decided to overcharge you a little bit because I needed some extra money to pay for medication. When you found out, you got angry and I felt sorry I cheated you but I was too embarrassed to apologize to you. I shouldn’t have cheated you like that, I know. Every time you walk pass my shop you either ignore me or give me that evil look, so I thought: what the hell, she's not a real yogi, so screw her. But today you came over to apologize and I thought: yes, she now acts as a real yogi. How nice. She forgives people who do wrong. So if you had still been angry with me and lost your flash-thing I would not have run after that kid for half a mile to get the flash-drive back. But because you apologized I thought, I run after that boy, get the flash-drive back and put the thing in my drawer. And I thought, if memsahib won’t come back soon to pick it up, I will go to her hut on the cliff because I know where you are staying.”
I put my hands in namaste and bowed my head. “I bless you, Sir-ji. Here’s 500 rupees to pay the hospital bill. Let me know if you need anything else. You know where I live. I bless you ten thousand times.”