The conductor said, “Now you be alert. Now you have taken a bath, just go in. Just don’t look at him. Don’t give him any chance.”

He would not look at me. I tried to ask how the water was. He simply said, “Just keep quiet – because I am an angry man. You have fooled me four times. And the conductor said you are a sudra. Either I will kill myself or I will kill you.”

I said, “I know what has happened – that conductor is such a joker! He must have told you, ‘He is a sudra. I have known him for many years and he has become converted to Christianity.’”

He said, “Yes, he told me.”

I said, “You are so gullible – anybody says something, and you believe it.”

So he said, “What finally have I to decide?”

I said, “You don’t have to decide at all – just go to sleep.”

He said, “I cannot sleep with a sudra. And four times you have deceived me, and I am afraid you can do anything.”

I said, “I will not do anything…but do you want the number of the horse?”

He said, “You have got me in your hands because that’s why I have been touching your feet and taking a cold shower. But I will take the number only if you are a high-caste brahmin.”

I said, “There is no question about it. Let the next station come and you will see.” At the next station, many people had come to see me – with many flowers and garlands – and he was convinced that they were all Hindus.

When I came back he was smiling and was saying, “Please forgive me. I have been telling you that you are this and that; just forgive me.” And he touched my feet again!

I said, “You are a fool! First you should have taken the number of the horse. You have committed the same mistake again.”

Then he freaked out, shouting all over the compartment. The conductor came, the servants came: “What is the matter?”

He said, “Nothing is the matter. I am a fool!” He asked the servants, “Does this man travel in the air-conditioned class often?”

They said, “Often – he is almost always traveling, and always in the air-conditioned class.”

“And does he know anything about horse racing?”

Those people said, “He knows nothing about horse racing! Are you talking nonsense? He talks about meditation, he talks about consciousness, But horse racing?”

He said, “My God, he is deceiving in that too – that those people are after him for a number. I can sleep in the corridor, but I cannot go inside the room. I cannot look at him. Seeing him, something goes wrong in me.”