Ashok Kumar and The Vow
The three-wheeled scooter driver, Ashok Kumar, age 21, was not honest. He cheated his customers every time, charging them too much. One day he took a customer to Golf Links (an elite locality of New Delhi) where he heard that “a Baba” had come. He stayed to have His darshan (to see a holy person). He saw Him twice that day. He wanted His photograph, but he wasn’t able to get one.
The next day, providence directed me to him. I hired his scooter and he was taking me along Golf Links Road. He turned around to ask me, “Did you see this Baba?” I pretended not to know about Him, so that I could draw him out. “Who is He?” I asked. For a full half-hour, the driver told of Baba’s miracles and how lucky he was to have had His darshan, not once but twice. I was touched by his genuine enthusiasm. He said, “While taking His darshan, I took an oath that I would never cheat anyone.”
When he drove up in front of my home, I took him in to see my little altar where I had photographs of Baba, garlanded with small oil lamps burning and incense sticks filling the room with fragrance. I gave him a photograph of Baba. He received it gratefully and said, “Baba has heard my prayers.”
I hired him again to drive me somewhere else, and when we reached the destination he said the charges were Rupees. 4-40 [less than ten cents]; I gave him a ten-rupee note; he returned a five and I asked him to keep the small change. Just then, another customer got into the scooter. While Ashok and I were engaged in conversation, the “customer” managed to pocket the ten rupee note which had fallen on the ground. As I was about to leave, Ashok came running, “Wait! You have not given me the ten rupee note.” That was a great shock. I gave him another ten rupees, and said, “If you find my first note in any of your pockets, return it to me.”
The next day he appeared at my home. He returned the ten-rupee note. He said, “Sorry! I made a big mistake.” He explained that “the gentleman” who hired the scooter had stolen the bill. “I detected it when he took the money from his pocket to pay the fare. When anyone gives me a currency note, I always fold it in a certain manner. I saw such a note in his possession. He refused to give it to me. There was a fight, a crowd gathered, a policeman came and finally the man reluctantly parted with it. After the crowd dispersed, the policeman asked me, ‘Why should you return the note to that other customer? Let us share it; give me five and you take five.’ But, I said to him, ‘If I am involved in an accident, you are not coming to help me. Baba will help me. I have taken an oath before Baba that I will never cheat anyone again.’”
This is an example of how an illiterate scooter-driver became honest. Maybe many thousands have turned a new leaf in their lives. Baba knows. Delhi’s polluted air has been sanctified by His visit. He alone can do it.
~R. Ramanujam, New Delhi
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, June 1972
