Oliver Benjamin
played dumb, calmly running him over like a steamroller. When
another jumped in front of him to make the same attempt, Joe
brushed him aside, and the tiny man went sailing across the room
like a tennis ball.
This very well could have been the genesis of his blunder. To
wit: in India you can hurl any insult to a man, curse his mother, spit
on his brother’s grave, defecate on his front porch, whatever suits
you, and there will be little or no threat of a violent retaliation. It is
assumed that karma will take care of that, and that you will come
back to the earth in the next life as a hapless dung beetle. On the
other hand, if it is you that is the perpetrator of some violent act, no
matter how minor, a different code of ethics comes into play. In this
case it is seen as every healthy Indian’s duty to get involved and use
whatever force necessary to put karma directly into action. Instant
karma is a nasty drink, and as such, frequently requires a violent stir.
Instantly they were upon him like flies on an open wound, and
as the open wounds proliferated, the flies did as well. Soon there
were eight to ten people trying to chop down the mountain of Joe
Fortune, but he stood fast. As the mayhem moved out into the street,
a crowd formed to watch the spectacle, and as wounded Indians left
the fracas, new ones took their place. There seemed to be no end to
the madness, and after a while, Joe began to wonder how long he
could last before they managed to subdue him and do some real
damage. There were a hell of a lot of Indians in India.
A rickshaw had been laboriously trying to steer through the
festering crowd, and when the enterprising driver realized Joe’s
predicament, he yelled out an irresistible offer for a quick getaway.
With one sweep of his massive forearm, Joe managed to send most of
his adversaries to the dusty ground and went bounding towards the
three-wheeled rescue vehicle. Within moments, they were careening
through the crowded streets, nearly annihilating a significant
number of Bombay’s population of mangy dogs, small children and
holy cows in the process. But Joe’s problems weren’t over—an
assortment of rickshaws appeared to be in hot pursuit (and seemed
to be doing their bit for population control as well). In a panic, Joe
decided that his rickshaw would be significantly nimbler with less
weight, so he stuffed an assortment of bills into the driver’s pocket
and gently but forcibly dropped him off on a corner with the promise
that he would bring the vehicle back in an hour or so.
Realizing that his gas couldn’t last forever, and unsure of what
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