The Fraud Buddha gets into an astonishing amount of scrapes and still remains bright eyed and bushy tailed.

He volunteered to give us a ride to the airport, and decided to give us some unsolicited advice on the way.

Lectures, Fraud Buddha style, very quickly degenerate into completely nonsensical discussions. I can’t really say they are arguments, even though each person in the party not only has an opinion but very clearly thinks the other is a complete idiot. In spite of all the devil’s advocates, everyone in the group remains friendly and peaceful and happily convinced of their own supremacy. I once told the Fraud Buddha that was his biggest achievement – there’s democracy, there’s discussion, but even if it’s heated, everyone still walks out arm-in-arm afterward. He blinked and said, only half jokingly. “But my aim was actually full domination.”.

Satori, said M, in complete, dreamy seriousness.

B and I looked at each other and guffawed simultaneously.

The Fraud sternly looked into the rear view mirror at our winking reflections.

Jokers – concentrate.

Suddenly there was a pseudo explosion. We ducked and screamed.

The Fraud had, in complete mindfulness, driven the sturdy SUV over a sharp, crackly steel pole. We rushed out.

I still don’t know how, but he managed to kill both front tyres. Regardless of the fact that Tyre Left went over the pole, Tyre Right could not escape the effects of the Fraud’s driving efforts and succumbed.

We were stranded – with five pieces of luggage, four Just-in-Time-But-Now-Really-Late passengers and standing on the pavement of a cab-less city.

Everyone started speaking loudly. M bellowed that the driver of this car had established beyond doubt that he possessed zero brain cells, I kept telling M to calm down and get into the car, B was interrogating the only sensible person around – the super efficient P, who was quietly trying to figure out the logistics of fixing two flats with equipment for one half.

The Fraud disappeared.

He came back in a few minutes and stood next to us. We had quietened down a bit by then, and were mostly smiling, and ribbing the Buddha. O enlightened, klutzy one, please guide us.

He smiled back and said nothing. We were alternating between brainstorming and Fraud Buddha bashing, when a sleek black SUV suddenly whizzed to our side.

The Fraud had managed reinforcements.  In ten three quarter minutes, and with one of the fastest, most famous drivers in the city who went on to get us to the airport in twenty two minutes flat.

How does he do it? Our Fraud is not your typical saint – he gets annoyed, he sulks, he is stubborn.

And yet he manages to live life in effortless style. Sun Tzu would have been baffled. There’s more enlightenment to the Fraud than we know.