Servants of India

Citation preview

R.K. LAXMAN Servants of India

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents About the Author Dedication Keshab the Handyman Swami the Cook Shanti the Maid Kumar the Actor Parvati the Ayah Anthony the Chauffeur Iswaran the Storyteller Ramu the Retainer Narasimha the Terrible The Saga of Ramaswami Copyright Page

PENGUIN BOOKS SERVANTS OF INDIA

Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman was born and educated in Mysore. Soon after he graduated from the University of Mysore, he began cartooning for the Free Press Journal, a newspaper in Bombay. Six months later, he joined the Times of India as staff cartoonist, a newspaper he has been with for over fifty years. He has written and published numerous short stories, essays and travel articles, some of which were published in a book, Idle Hours. He has also written two novels, The Hotel Riviera and The Messenger, both published by Penguin Books. Penguin has also published several collections of Laxman’s cartoons in the series The Best of Laxman and Laugh with Laxman. The Tunnel of Time, Laxman’s autobiography, is also available from Penguin Books, as is Collected Writings, an omnibus of his prose. R.K. Laxman was awarded the prestigious Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. The University of Marathwada conferred an honorary Doctor of Literature degree on him. He has won many awards for his cartoons, including Asia’s top journalism award, the Ramon Magsaysay Award, in 1984. R.K. Laxman lives in Mumbai.

To Kamala, my wife

Keshab the Handyman

Ganesh was busy composing an article on the mosquito menace in the town, decrying the lack of initiative on the part of the civic authorities in the matter of cleaning up clogged drains. He was a freelance journalist and wrote on varying subjects, ranging from mosquitoes—which was what he was busy with at the present moment—to saving the Taj Mahal from pollution, from the dire need for a children’s playground in the city to the effect brand images and market forces had on the morals of cricket players. Through Cosmos Syndicate his articles found their place in a wide range of magazines and newspapers. The income from his efforts allowed him to lead a comfortable life and had also paid for his son’s degree in computer science which had found him his ultimate destiny in Chicago in a software firm.

Ganesh had even managed to get him married to a girl from a well-to-do NRI family. He had seen an advertisement in the matrimonial column in a newspaper: ‘Affluent parents of a fair, pretty, slim, modern educated girl seek alliance with well to do, handsome, tall … etc.’ Gancsh had responded on an impulse. It was not long before the marriage was settled and the boy now lived happily with his wife. While Ganesh was concentrating on mosquitoes his ears were recording the various noises from the kitchen: clanking vessels, dropped spoons, mixtures being churned, water gushing from the tap etc. The cook was a new chap. He was being drilled by his wife Geetha to fit into the lifestyle of the household. The previous fellow had asked permission to take a day off, saying someone owed him money and he had to go and collect it. He had said he would be back the following morning to prepare breakfast. He had never mined up again and disappeared without a trace. He had actually been squirreling away his possessions bit by bit over a week to another place. Finally when he got his salary on the first of the month he had left swinging his empty hands rather conspicuously. In the three years he had served them he had become one of the mechanical fixtures in the kitchen. Now his sudden absence had thrown the household out of gear. Ganesh had sat at his desk watching his wife with concern. She would dash in and out of the kitchen wiping the sweat off her face with the end of her saree end cursing her fate and the community of ingrate servants in general. She now had to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner all on her own, without a moment’s rest. After they had appealed to all sorts of people—friends, relatives and sundry acquaintances—to find them a new cook, the present one had turned up. He had shown them a string of recommendations and certificates. ‘Varadan is an excellent cook, honest, clean, hard-working and God-fearing. He was in our service for many years till I was transferred …’ The very picture of him standing framed in the doorway had given the couple such relief that they found it hard to hide. The obvious questions were shot at him. ‘Where were you working before?’ ‘In the High Court judge’s

house.’ ‘Why did you leave the job?’ ‘He retired and left the town.’ And so on. Finally he was appointed. Geetha found him satisfactory. The tension that was building up dangerously at home eased suddenly. The after-dinner conversations were now carried on in a lighter vein, recalling their experience with crooked cooks and eccentric and cunning servants. On one such occasion Geetha said, ‘It is really funny—come to think of it. You write about so many things. Why don’t you write a series called “Servants of India”?’ At first it seemed merely a good-humoured leg-pull. But slowly the idea began to germinate in Ganesh’s mind. He recalled the hordes of cooks, drivers, servants, maids and various other helping hands who had passed through his home over the years. It was a colourful army composed of diverse characters: miserably poor people from the villages who had lost their all in a family dispute or famine, drivers with hopes of becoming a chauffeur for the chairman of some industrial giant, widows, orphans and a few plain thieves. Ganesh remembered Keshab. He was an all-purpose hand in the household. He was a good help to Geetha in the kitchen when the cook absented himself. In an emergency he could double up as gardener or driver. He was also a handyman who could fix a blown-out fuse and restore the lights, drive a nail on the wall to hang a picture, repair the grinder in the kitchen and set right a leaking tap in the bathroom, all within the space of an hour.

Keshab proved a great asset whenever Ganesh threw a cocktail party at home or invited people over for dinner. He used to act like a professional waiter serving drinks and snacks, and keeping a vigilant eye on the liquidlevel in the guests’ glasses. They were an assorted variety: newspaper editors, lawyers, business tycoons, art critics, government officials and so on. They were all useful to Ganesh since they could provide him with material for his column. On one such occasion Ganesh’s drawing room was abuzz with guests who had turned up for cocktails. Keshab was softly gliding in and out of the gathering with a tray of drinks. Among those present was the Commissioner of Police. As time passed the crowd began to thin out. Before leaving the commissioner took Ganesh aside and asked, ‘How did you come to engage that bearer of yours?’ ‘Oh, you mean Keshab?’ Ganesh responded, thinking like so many others that the commissioner was admiring Keshab’s smartness and his unobtrusively efficient service. He showered praise on Keshab and said he

was an asset to the household. ‘I can see that. Smart chap. But where did you find him?’ ‘I don’t know, Sam, my wife found him! He was recommended by her friend’s friend and so on. You know how these things happen.’ Ganesh laughed. ‘He is truly a godsend.’ The commissioner looked grim and said in a hollow tone, ‘I am afraid I have to arrest him. He is a wanted criminal …!’ The rest of what the commissioner was saying did not register on Ganesh. He felt as if the very earth was slipping away from under his feet. He began to perspire. Holding on to the commissioner for support he led him to the balcony. He was afraid he would pass out and make a fool of himself before the few guests who were still lingering in the doorway. ‘When are you going to arrest him?’ Ganesh managed to ask once they were outside. ‘Right away! I will call the station and they can come and pick him up,’ said the commissioner. ‘Please don’t, Sam, for God’s sake,’ Ganesh pleaded. ‘My wife will not stand the shock. She will have to make alternate arrangements and she can’t do it at such short notice. She will have to clean up and set the house right after the guests leave. Our cook can’t do it. If you ask him he will also leave. We will be in a mess. Have some sympathy, Sam. Keshab has been going about freely all these days. A few more hours of freedom will not matter. You can arrest him tomorrow, Sam.’ Ganesh sounded truly pathetic. ‘But, Ganesh, it is dangerous to keep such a criminal in the house. One can’t say what he would do …’ the commissioner argued. Ganesh could not believe that Keshab had suddenly become a monster overnight. ‘He has been with us over six months now and we have not lost a pin,’ he said, ‘nor has he ever misbehaved. Just let him be for one more night, Sam. We will take all possible care. Don’t worry.’ ‘Well, no ill feelings, Ganesh,’ the commissioner said. ‘It is my duty to arrest criminals—I am a police officer. But all right, since you insist, I will wait till tomorrow. But first thing in the morning.’ He left after taking a good

look at Keshab who was holding the door for the guests and saluting them as they departed. Ganesh felt a deep sadness when he saw Keshab. He could not believe that the handsome face with high cheekbones, well-shaped nose and arched eyebrows that he saw before him was actually a mask hiding a criminal. At any moment, he thought, the face might transform itself into a sinister visage complete with bushy eyebrows, hawk-like nose, rows of large teeth, thick lips, and black rings round the bulging eyeballs. Now there was the problem of telling his wife about the criminal under their roof. His heart broke when he saw her cheerfully telling the kitchen staff including Keshab how well the party had gone off and how delicious the preparations were. Ganesh, meanwhile, was moving around glumly, picking up the bottles of liquor and putting them back on the bar shelf. He saw himself addressing Keshab: ‘Look, the police are coming.’ He shuddered at the vision. Ganesh was caught in a dilemma—whether to betray Sam and deny him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of arresting a notorious criminal or betray Keshab and deny him the chance to escape from a long term in prison. Both Sam and Keshab were dear to him. He could hear his wife in the kitchen giving the servants a list of the guests who had attended the party: the manager of the Paradise Bookshop, the proprietor of Camban Industries, The Daily Call reporter, the Commissioner of Police, the dentist … Here Ganesh heard Keshab interrupt and ask what the police commissioner looked like. ‘Oh, he was that tall man in the blue safari suit …’ his wife described him. Keshab did not say anything. Just as Ganesh had feared, the cook banged on the bedroom door the next morning to announce that Keshab had disappeared. ‘He has also taken my shaving kit, comb and mirror,’ the cook complained. Geetha was stunned! She stood still trying to comprehend the situation, biting her lips nervously. Then she made a dash to her cupboard to see if all her jewellery was safe. Ganesh tried to tell them what the commissioner had told him. But both the cook and his wife were engaged in an excited exchange of views they had

always held about Keshab. ‘He’s a cunning rascal,’ said the cook. ‘I always had a suspicion about that crook,’ said the wife. ‘I never trusted him and knew he was hiding something.’ ‘That’s why I never wanted to leave him alone in the house.’ Thus they went on airing their feelings about the departed servant. The discussion ended with the wife pointing to Ganesh and saying, ‘Keshab was his favourite and I knew it was no use airing my opinion about him. That’s why I kept my mouth shut.’ Ganesh kept quiet with just a grunt of denial in answer to the allegation. He was too tired to argue and didn’t want to get into a quarrel with his wife. He had not slept the whole night thinking of the prospect that awaited him in the morning. Some time later he wrote an article entitled ‘The Making of a Thief’ for Cosmos Syndicate. For this he took the help of his many friends and acquaintances in the police force. He had access to the police records of pickpockets, stranglers, of old ladies, chain snatchers at the bus stand, extortionists, smugglers and so on. But he ignored most of the material he had acquired. He concentrated only on the case of Keshab, tracing his evolution in the crime world. He could not help admiring the fellow. He wondered how a person with such an amazing degree of intelligence and aptitude could have taken to crime. Keshab was the son of a textile factory worker. After dropping out of high school, he became a tailor’s apprentice for a while but bunked one night after collecting all the suiting and shirting material in the shop. He then found a job in an auto workshop. Within a short span of time he learnt a great deal about the mechanism of cars. But he left sensing that the proprietor had begun to search for the missing batteries, fan belts and tyres. The travel agency he worked for next gave him an opportunity to drive an Ambassador car all over the country for assorted tourists. His next job was that of a waiter in a five-star hotel. It was even rumoured in police circles that he had joined a gang led by a notorious criminal who operated from some middle-eastern country. Under his leadership Keshab broke into several

jewellery shops after assaulting and beating up the watchman. His career continued thus leaving in its wake innumerable police cases and arrest warrants. The police record showed that once he was even arrested but escaped from police custody when being escorted to the magistrate’s court. The police seemed to have lost track of him for several years after this. Eventually he reappeared, under an assumed name. He had changed his hairstyle, grown rather prominent whiskers and done his best to avoid any resemblance to the photograph that had appeared in all the prominent dailies in the column titled, ‘Wanted for criminal offence’. With the passing of time he gained courage and gradually transformed himself back to his original looks: a closely trimmed crop and a thin line of moustache arching the upper lip. This was the personality Ganesh had hired when he was in dire need of a domestic help. Six months later Keshab had to be on the run again after he was identified by the police commissioner at Ganesh’s cocktail party.

Swami the Cook

Ganesh enjoyed telling the story of Keshab to his friends, garnishing it with narrative embellishments, making his audience feel as if they had been present when the incident took place. Infected by the mood of the gathering, Vasu, a close companion of Ganesh, said he was eager to share the experience he had with one of the cooks who had served in his household. But Vasu lacked the verve and sense of drama that Ganesh possessed. His account of Swami the cook was bland and matter of fact, like a government report—lacking suspense, the element of surprise or humour. However, Ganesh, when putting the story down on paper, used his creativity in order to hold the interest of the reader.

‘Ganesh, I don’t know if you remember,’ Vasu began. ‘Some years ago we were both invited by a friend of ours to his daughter’s engagement ceremony. There were quite a few people in the hall and you sat on the sofa next to an orthodox looking fellow …’ Ganesh nodded, trying to recollect. ‘Well, can you believe he was our cook once? You might have noticed he was the pundit who conducted the engagement ceremony!’ Vasu launched into the story of Swami the cook. He had come recommended by a relative of Vasu’s who lived in Bangalore. They had met Swami at the station and brought him home. He was a quiet fellow, with a smile always on his lips. Vasu’s wife instandy took to him and found him extremely agreeable. On the day he landed up he went straight to the garden tap, had a bath and then moved to the kitchen, familiarizing himself with the surroundings and asking Vasu’s wife questions about where to find what. He did not even mention anything about the salary. At the end of the month when Vasu asked him how much he expected, he replied, ‘Whatever you think I deserve, sir,’ and giggled. He did his work well and Vasu’s wife was immensely pleased. She ignored some of the strange traits he had—like talking to himself when he was alone in the kitchen. He also had a habit of leaning against the kitchen doorway and gazing unabashedly at visitors who might have dropped in. Sometimes it became embarrassing and he had to be asked to look for some sundry work in the kitchen. Of all the eccentricities of Swami’s what Vasu liked was his butting in with clichés when he was busy talking to his wife at the dining table. ‘Noble thoughts should be accepted even if they are from a crook,’ Swami would pronounce; or ‘A fish and a cat cannot be friends’; or ‘You can change the name of a person but you cannot change his character.’ Once Vasu developed a severe soar throat in the middle of the night. He felt the need for gargling. Not wanting to disturb his wife, he quietly groped his way in the dark to the kitchen to boil some water and get some salt. When he switched on the light he was shocked. Swami was lying on the floor stretched out like a corpse, eyes shut tight. His forehead was plastered

with sacred ash and saffron. His dhoti was dripping wet. But his lips were twittering faintly as though uttering something. Vasu decided this was no time to prepare hot water for gargling. He switched off the light and quietly tiptoed back to bed. His wife was still fast asleep. Next morning at the breakfast table Vasu behaved as if he had not seen anything strange in the kitchen the previous night. The cook, of course, having been in a state of trance when he was lying on the floor, was unaware of the master’s midnight visit to the kitchen. Vasu could not believe that the same Swami who was serving breakfast so normally was the very man he had found stretched out on the kitchen floor the previous night, looking like one who was being prepared for human sacrifice.

Vasu suppressed the curiosity to ask Swami what it was all about. He instinctively felt he would be walking into unknown territory which could

lead to complications involving his wife and end in Swami’s departure from their household. Many days later the moment arrived for Vasu to have a private conversation with Swami. Everyone in the house had gone out. There was no one to overhear or interfere. Swami looked relaxed. He was looking out of the window vaguely and gently humming a tune. It was a tranquil hum almost inviting Vasu to break the ice. ‘Shall I bring a cup of coffee, sir?’ Swami asked. ‘Yes, please do. But first tell me why you were lying on the kitchen floor the other night in a wet dhoti with kumkum and vibhuti smeared on your forehead,’ Vasu said with a casual air, not wanting to cause any alarm to the fellow. ‘Oh, that! It must have been a full moon day,’ Swami replied equally casually, and strode off into the kitchen. After a few minutes he peeped out of the kitchen while engaged in preparing the coffee and said, ‘On every full moon day, sir, I take a bath at midnight, then dripping wet I pray to Ashta Ganesha and lie on the bare floor and meditate till my dhoti becomes absolutely dry.’ ‘So you knew I had come into the kitchen that day?’ ‘Of course, sir. But sorry, sir, I could not get up as I was meditating.’ Vasu was nonplussed by the matter-of-fact manner in which Swami had replied. He thought over the matter and decided it would be better not to reveal to his wife Swami’s ritual on every full moon day. She was bound to conclude that the cook was given to practising some kind of sorcery or black magic. Her entire attitude towards him would change and then it would be a question of time before he left their service. A whole year passed by. Vasu had forgotten all about the incident by now. His wife went about cheerfully attending to her club activities and entertaining friends. Then, one morning, Swami, after serving breakfast as usual said, ‘Sir, do not misunderstand me. I like you and madam. This is like my second home. But I am sorry I have to leave your service, sir.’

Vasu was taken aback by the sudden announcement and almost screamed, ‘When?’ ‘On the first of next month, sir.’ Vasu felt a surge of helplessness at the thought of the house without a cook and his wife throwing tantrums. Panic and anger jammed his power of thinking. All he could say was, ‘Go inside and do your work. There is a lot of time still. We will think about it …’ ‘I will find a substitute, sir, before I leave,’ Swami said quietly. Vasu did not show any reaction and went on turning the pages of the Evening Herald pretending to be interested in the news items which he was least interested in: ‘Cine star fined Rs 500 for rash driving’, ‘D Ward ration shop to be shifted’, ‘Students protest change of curriculum’, ‘Truck knocks down pedestrians’, etc. Swami was still standing in front of him like a statue. The situation was becoming embarrassing. Vasu was in no position to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Swami without his wife’s concurrence. After all she was the one who dealt with him day and night. Luckily the pressure cooker intervened with a whistle, signalling the rice had been boiled. Swami, the efficient cook, dashed to the kitchen to tend to his duties. Vasu’s wife returned from her club soon, bubbling and cheerful, full of news about the club activities. Vasu felt sorry he had to break the news about Swami to her and shatter her mood … Finally the day came for Swami to leave. Vasu’s household was thrown into turmoil for a while, then he found a new cook and things settled down again. Vasu concluded the story. ‘Well, Ganesh, that priest you were sitting next to in our friend’s house on that engagement ceremony day was none other than Swami, who was our cook a long time ago,’ he finished. After leaving Vasu’s house Swami was not heard of for many years. Then he became a self-appointed priest in a temple in his village. But whenever he came to town he called on Vasu with a coconut, kumkum, betel leaves and flowers, which he offered to his wife. Then he had his mid-day meal and a brief nap, and departed.

He had meanwhile become the village astrologer who chose auspicious times for weddings and for starting new business ventures. He had become quite popular with the villagers because of his ability to dish out proverbial clichés and truisms woven into stories from mythology and folklore. He would tell his stories to a crowd that gathered in the temple courtyard in the evenings. Many years later an NRI who belonged to that village happened to be taking a nostalgic trip back home, and chanced upon Swami’s philosophical observations. During his stay he made it a point to visit the temple every evening to listen to Swami. Then one day he suggested Swami should visit America and offered to take him along. Thus Swami landed in New Jersey to educate the Hindu community about Hinduism and hold impromptu religious discourses. In course of time he changed his name to Swami Swaroopananda. After this, those at home who had contact with him heard only rumours about him: that he was travelling extensively in the USA and giving lectures, that he was going to Europe, that he was raising money to build temples and so on. Then these rumours stopped as well and Swami was heard of no more.

Shanti the Maid

Ganesh was composing an article on the government tourist department for the Cosmos Syndicate. He wanted to expose how innocent tourists were literally being taken for a ride and not being shown any real places of interest. But he could not concentrate on the subject because he could not help overhearing the dialogue that was going on between his wife Geetha and a new maidservant she was trying to employ. The old servant had left abruptly without notice. ‘I’ll wash the vessels but I will not wipe them dry or arrange them on the rack,’ the maid was saying. ‘You have to dust the furniture, windows, sweep the floor and make the bed in the morning …’ ‘No, madam, I can’t dust the furniture and windows. But I will sweep the floors and make the bed. I want one cup of tea. You must allow me to wash my domes …’

‘You can have one cup of tea but you can’t wash your clothes in our house.’ ‘If you pay a little more I will also …’ ‘Look, don’t talk about more money. First you do these jobs I have mentioned and then I will decide how much you deserve.’ ‘But madam, your offer is too low. Those people in that building offered me more.’ ‘Then go and work for them …’ Geetha said sharply and shut the door with finality. ‘She is too demanding. She thinks too highly of herself. Even before joining she says she won’t do this and won’t do that. I am glad I have not employed her. It would not have worked out with that haughty ass in the house …’ Geetha muttered to herself. ‘But you said you couldn’t carry on without a helping hand,’ Ganesh said. ‘Dusting, sweeping, washing and the other household chores are breaking your back, you complained.’ ‘I have not met a friend nor gone to the club for many days now!’ Geetha grumbled. ‘Then employ her. What does it matter, a few rupees more or less, Geetha,’ Ganesh pleaded. ‘Never, that princess does not deserve a rupee more. I know she is going from door to door begging for a job. If I did not have this horrible backache I would have done all the work myself,’ Geetha said and stormed out of the room in the direction of the kitchen. But the next morning Ganesh woke up to the familiar voices of the cook, his wife and the new maidservant. He got up with relief. The maid was a young, dark and buxom girl. She sported a large red kumkum bindi on her broad forehead. Her hair was raven black and well oiled, and was combed back and knotted at the nape, making her look as if she was wearing a steel helmet. A few days later Geetha came into the study beaming with satisfaction. ‘She is thorough in her work’, she announced. ‘The extra twenty-five rupees I promised is worth it. Come and take a look at how neatly she has washed the

vessels and arranged them on the rack. I taught her only once. I am glad Parvathi, the previous one, left us. She was useless. She left all the vessels oily with food particles sticking to the vessels. They were supposed to have been washed! She did not deserve half the salary she was getting, not to mention my old sarees and the new ones during Diwali … This I did not tell you. She used to make little packets of the provisions, hide them in the folds of her saree and take them home. She thought I did not know. But I kept quiet, you know why. Because I thought the next one would be even worse …’ Just then a thunderous noise of dropped vessels from the kitchen drowned out their conversation. Geetha left mumbling, ‘I told the cook to tell the girl not to overload her hands with too many vessels.’ Ganesh waited, expecting his wife to rave and rant at the maid. But there were only low murmurs. Geetha came back and said, ‘She will learn by and by. After all she is new.’ But the maid took her own time in learning. In a short while there was not a single vessel which was not dented, nor a coffee cup that was not chipped. Ganesh got used to the clatter from the kitchen along with accusations and explanations that were tossed to and fro between the mistress and the maid. Off and on Geetha would rush out of the kitchen fretting and fuming with a piece of damaged kitchenware saying, ‘Remember? This we bought only recently. She has to get out. Otherwise our kitchen will be a junkyard very soon.’ But of course, both of them knew they could not dismiss a servant, however bad their work might be. The choice of leaving was always the prerogative of the employee. Simple excuses like ‘My aunt is ill’, ‘Someone owes me money and I have to go and collect it’, ‘My cousin is getting married’ and so on were enough to get release on the spot from service without notice. One day the noise became so unbearable that Ganesh, who was tackling the subject of accidents on highways, shouted in the direction of the kitchen: ‘Stop making so much noise. Are your hands paralysed?’ There was complete silence for some time. Then Geetha came out of the kitchen and said in a hushed tone, ‘You have upset her. You shouted at her! I know how

to handle these people. They will take anything from me. But you can’t interfere. If she leaves it will be your job to find a substitute. It is all very well for you to sit there under the fan and write your article. But I will have to bear the burden of running this household if she leaves. Have some sympathy for me and show some tolerance.’ ‘Is that woman more important to you than the master of the house? Why don’t you learn to do some useful work instead of visiting friends for gossip and watching TV!’ Ganesh asked her mentally, trying to concentrate on the piece he was writing. A few weeks later he was structuring the opening sentence for the article ‘The spurious drugs menace’. ‘In an abandoned garage in a slum area of the town there exist some internationally renowned drug industries …’ was as far as he had got. He was very pleased with the beginning and what followed would send a chill down the spine of the reader. But he was distracted by a face that appeared at the window. ‘Who are you?’ Ganesh asked. ‘I work in the next house,’ grinned the face. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Shanti and I belong to the same village.’ ‘So?’ ‘Word has been sent to me from her people to be passed on to her, sir …’ Ganesh summoned the cook and asked him to deal with the situation and returned to the ‘Spurious drugs menace’. He was sure this visit would signal the end of Shanti’s tenure in their house. But his wife took it calmly. She put some tactful questions to Shanti and was satisfied with the replies. The boy working next door was her brother’s wife’s relative. The message he had come to pass on was somewhat complicated and vague. However, there was no change in Shanti’s behaviour and life went on smoothly in the days that followed at Ganesh’s home. One day, on his way back from the Cosmos Syndicate office, Ganesh saw Shanti at the paan shop at the corner of the street chatting animatedly with his neighbour’s servant boy. After this she began to go out, saying she would be back in half an hour. Later the cook, returning from shopping, reported to

Geetha that he had seen Shanti with the neighbour’s servant in the market. The dhobi, milkman and the bread vendor came with reports that Shanti had been sighted with the same fellow somewhere or the other in the locality. The maid had become a centre of gossip. Both Ganesh and Geetha helplessly awaited the servant crisis that was bound to hit their household. But nothing happened for a long time. As time went by curiosity about Shanti’s wayward behaviour slowly faded away from their consciousness. Geetha became so generous with the maid that sometimes she would ask Shanti to take the rest of the day off and go home if her work was done. She lived with her uncle and aunt in a slum a few kilometres away. Shanti, of course, took advantage of this to go not to her uncle’s house but to meet the servant boy next door. On one of his morning walks Ganesh ran into his neighbour. He was a chartered accountant working away at ledger books belonging to big business houses. He was rotund with a round face, a button nose and two dots for eyes in the middle of thick rimless glasses. ‘Hello, Mr Ganesh. I enjoy reading your column regularly. How do you manage to think of a new subject to tackle week after week? Amazing!’ the neighbour enthused when he spotted Ganesh. ‘Oh, thank you Mr Majumdar,’ Ganesh responded, laughing. ‘It is actually a constant worry searching for a fresh theme. But, of course, in our country there is no dearth of subjects. If it is not corruption among politicians it will be undernourished children or fake medical degrees or dope smuggling.’ This was the stock reply Ganesh had given to scores of others. ‘Very true, very true,’ Majumdar said with a serious expression. ‘I hope you don’t mind my raising this problem with you, Mr Ganesh,’ he continued, clearing his throat. ‘You see, the maidservant working in your house constanly comes to our house to meet Satish, our servant. They both meet in the garage and talk for a long time. But this disrupts the routine work at home. Naturally the women get upset. I would have gladly got rid of that rascal. But where does one get a replacement these days? He has become so arrogant and lazy these days—he talks back, sulks, and goes about with a long face. I can’t stand the sight of him in that mood.’

‘I am sorry, Mr Majumdar. I did not know Shanti is making a nuisance of herself. I am glad you have brought it to my notice,’ Ganesh said pretending to be shocked. In reality, of course, he had no intention of warning Shanti, for the same reason Mr Majumdar couldn’t kick Satish out. ‘Thank you Mr Ganesh, thank you,’ said Majumdar. ‘I knew you would understand. My brother is coming from Calcutta with his family to stay with us for a few days. We can’t manage without a servant with guests around.’ He went on mumbling about the lack of morals among the younger generation, whether rich or poor, these days. He also complained about their lack of responsibility. ‘You must be reading the news items in the papers about teenagers driving cars at breakneck speed running over pedestrians and driving away without stopping and so on … I don’t have to tell you. You are a media man.’ Ganesh listened without paying much attention. He was actually pondering over using this as the theme for his column. Majumdar’s voice had begun to fade in his ears, but suddenly its tone increased in volume and said, ‘This you must hear. Have you some time to spare? Good, then, let’s sit on the park bench and talk.’ They walked back a short distance to the park and sat down on a bench. ‘This really happened! Just goes to show how far these blackguards can go!’ Majumdar said by way of prologue. He then narrated an incident that had happened in his friend’s house involving a servant boy about Satish’s age. The boy was all right actually as servants go. But his friend, Ashok, was highly suspicious of everyone, kept a close watch on servants and enforced discipline in a crisp manner. He cut a portion of the salary for the slightest mistake committed and kept back a part of the agreed salary every month on condition that the rest of the amount would be paid later if the job done was satisfactory. If the servant showed a tendency to leave disgruntled with the conditions of work, Ashok would warn him: ‘Hey look! If you have any idea of running away from here, forget it. I will report to the police that some silver vessels are missing. If the police catch you that would be the end for you!’

It was a unique way of retaining a servant and getting him to do the work. Ganesh was greatly interested in the story as it seemed totally different from the material he had collected so far for his ‘Servants of India’ chronicle. Mr Majumdar continued with the story of Ashok and his servant. One day Ashok’s wife complained that Shiva had not emptied the garbage bin for three days and the whole kitchen was stinking. At once, Ashok erupted like a volcano and said he would immediately call the police and complain that Shiva had stolen a gold chain. Shiva fell at Ashok’s feet begging forgiveness and asked him to cut his salary for three days; he promised he would remove the garbage immediately and clean up the kitchen, which he did, making it spick and span with a refreshing smell of disinfectant. Ashok was very satisfied but did not acknowledge it to the servant boy. He sat before the TV with a sense of triumph and a glass of whisky. His wife was busy folding the clothes and putting them away in the cupboard. The music on TV was blaring away. The servant stepped out of the kitchen gripping an iron pestle tightly with both hands. He stole up behind the master who was absorbed in the movie. He took aim carefully and brought the pestle crashing down on Ashok’s head. Luckily, just then Ashok sensed some movement behind him and turned his head; so the iron instrument landed on his shoulder, fracturing the shoulder bone. Miraculously he survived. But it was months before he could leave his bed and move about in a wheelchair. The police who knew Ashok very well whispered to themselves that from the way he used to blackmail the servants to keep them in his employ, they knew what was coming to him. The police carried out a search for Shiva the servant boy. Of course, he was never traced. A fortnight after Majumdar told this story to Ganesh Shanti the maidservant rushed into the house one afternoon howling and crying her heart out. Ganesh who had been reading a book dropped it and rushed to her. His wife came running from the inner room enquiring anxiously, ‘What happened, Shanti? What happened, my child …?’ ‘He tried to touch me! That son of a prostitute!’ Shanti yelled amidst cascading tears. ‘Who?’ asked Geetha.

Choking on her words she blurted out: ‘Satish! He tried to touch me!’ ‘What do you mean … touch you?’ Ganesh asked. Geetha signalled to him to keep quiet and waved him to his room. Just then the doorbell rang, Ganesh opened the door and found his neighbour Majumdar. Satish was standing some distance away.

‘Come in, come in. What a pleasant surprise,’ Ganesh greeted him. ‘I am sorry I am barging in like this! You see I heard your maidservant shouting in our garage. I saw Satish standing with palms pressed together pleading with her to keep quiet. On seeing me she ran out …’ Satish looked dazed and said, ‘I did nothing, sir. I swear on my father and mother I did nothing …’ Majumdar said, ‘I came to find out what exactly had happened.’ Meanwhile the cook had joined the group. Shanti was bawling uncontrollably. Satish was gesturing helplessness, protesting and pleading to

the group to believe him. Everyone was talking in a high pitch explaining, theorizing, speculating, drowning out the voices of one another. Finally Geetha ordered the cook to withdraw to the kitchen. She persuaded Shanti to go and have a cup of tea and led her in. Majumdar similarly asked Satish to go home and attend to his work. Crestfallen, he left, dragging his feet. Ganesh then escorted Majumdar to the gate wondering what the pandemonium was about. But Majumdar seemed to have grasped the situation. He laughed and said, ‘Same old problem!’ Ganesh asked, ‘She was repeatedly saying the boy tried to touch her. He didn’t try to rape her, did he?’ ‘No, no, not at all! What a thing to say! Satish is a rogue in many ways. But he certainly won’t do anything like that, Mr Ganesh. I know him well enough.’ ‘Then what was it she was howling about, saying “he touched me, he touched me”, as if her modesty had been outraged?’ ‘Oh, that! He tried to hold her hand and tell her that he wanted to marry her. He tried to imitate the Hindi movie heroes … The fellow spends all his spare time in front of the TV. I should not have allowed it …’ After this episode both the houses were caught in a turmoil. Shanti never recovered fully from her traumatic experience and brooded and moped all day long. One day she said, ‘Nothing against you or master, madam, I like you both. But I want to go back to my village …’ and started crying. The next morning she left carrying her bundle of clothes in a jute bag. Some time later Ganesh asked the cook casually about Majumdar’s servant Satish. ‘I don’t know, sir! I don’t see him these days. He must have gone back to his village. He too belongs to Shanti’s village …’ the cook left the sentence hanging and smiled meaningfully. In the meantime Geetha and Ganesh were hunting for a suitable maidservant. After rejecting, selecting and being rejected several times they found a maid for almost double the salary that they had been paying Shanti. The couple helplessly accepted the whims and eccentricities of the new hand and carried on, hoping someone better would turn up eventually.

Their neighbour Majumdar, nurturing similar hopes, was trying to cope with his newly acquired manservant.

Kumar the Actor

Quite a few persons close to Ganesh had come to know that he was interested in the domestics for a book he was writing. They came to him offering anecdotes about their experiences with their servants. Anand, a friend, had this story to tell. He had a cook, Kumar by name—a fair, elegant-looking young fellow with long dark curly hair cascading down his nape. Anand was the head of a joint family that comprised two of his younger brothers, their wives and children. The house they lived in was a big one with many rooms, some of which were not occupied but used for dumping empty cardboard boxes, broken toys, old cricket bats and so on. Kumar occupied one of the rooms at the far end of a long corridor. It suited him because it had private access. He also had the habit of singing songs whenever he had the time. He had marked short vertical lines in a row on the floor with a piece of chalk to serve as keys for an imaginary harmonium. He

would run his fingers along them to produce an imaginary background accompaniment while he sang in a low tone. He was a great favourite with the children. He sang folk songs and made them dance and showed them tricks with coins and playing cards. The untended garden around the house with its trees and wild bushes offered Kumar and children an excellent playground. All this did not come in the way of his rendering help to the ladies in the kitchen with boiling, stirring, grinding, powdering, slicing etc. He also served food in three stages: first the children, then the male members and finally the ladies. After this he was free to retire to his room to read the newspapers, write letters and sing songs. There was a maidservant to take care of washing vessels and tidying up the kitchen. Anand’s home was an ideal place to work with school-going children and adults attending offices; the routine in the household revolved round strict lines. The work usually got over early in the evening and Kumar was then free to dress up and go out. One night when the whole house was in deep slumber Anand woke up to the creaking noise of the garden gate being opened. He looked out of the window and saw Kumar coming in. The time was 2 a.m. One day Kumar was handing over the morning coffee to Anand when the latter noticed pink blotches on his cheeks and neck. There were also purple rings round his eyes. ‘What’s the matter with your skin, Kumar?’ Anand asked.

Kumar looked embarrassed. Rubbing his cheeks with his hands, he looked at them and dashed into his room. In a few minutes he returned with a shy smile on his lips. ‘It is nothing, sir. Just paint. I did not wash properly.’ ‘Paint? What paint Kumar?’ ‘You see, sir, I act in a drama on Saturday nights. I have to wear a costume, crown, wig and paint my face. I forgot to wipe off the paint properly, sir, so sorry …’ he said and laughed. ‘You are an actor, Kumar? I did not know that!’ ‘I have been acting for many years, sir. In social plays, mythologicals …’ ‘What was your role last night?’ Anand asked. ‘Goddess Parvati, sir. Parvati comes to earth in the guise of an old woman to test the King Rahul’s sincerity. Our Sahithya Sangeetha Drama Company is very popular, sir. They always want me. They all like my acting.’ Anand was very happy to hear all this. He told all the family members about Kumar’s hitherto hidden talent. Everyone had something nice to say about Kumar and paid fulsome tribute to his efficiency in running the house. He rarely absented himself from the routine work. Occasionally when he had

a bout of fever or cold he had to be compelled to take the day off and rest in his room. It was then that the womenfolk felt helpless in the kitchen. Men became impatient and howled for breakfast before departing for the office and the children felt his absence even more keenly in the garden when they played games. When Kumar recovered and returned to work the whole family heaved a sigh of relief. But this Utopian existence could not last long. One day after breakfast Anand was sitting and sipping his coffee in a relaxed contented mood. The rest of the family members had drifted away from the dining room to attend to their various jobs. The children had left for school and silence reigned in the house. Kumar was still standing near Anand and staring at him instead of cleaning the table and going about his business. ‘What’s the matter, Kumar?’ Anand asked. ‘Nothing sir. Our Sahithya Sangeetha Drama Company’s director Mr Gangadar Naik wants me to give up cooking and join his touring company permanently, sir.’ Anand could not believe his ears. Blood rushed to his head. His heart began to throb like a tribal drum. He could not contemplate the effect this bit of news would have on the men, the women and the children of his household. A storm raged within him and he lost control of himself. He shouted at Kumar, ‘You ungrateful wretch. You want to follow the advice of that so-called director after growing up like the son of our family in this house, enjoying the comfort and freedom …’ Kumar was stunned. He had not expected such a volcanic eruption from his master. He could merely mumble, ‘… No, sir … it’s just that I want to become a full-time actor.’ ‘Oh, I see … so what do you expect us to do while you are becoming a great star? Starve? Or is your great drama company going to feed us?’ Anand was aware he was uttering nonsense. But at that moment it was the sound and fury that mattered, he told himself, not reason and rhyme.

‘No, sir … you are bound to get someone, sir …’ Kumar mumbled, on the verge of tears. ‘Oh, I see. Thank you! Of course, we will get someone. Surely you are not the only cook in the world? But before I kick you out, get this straight. You can’t leave unless we get a replacement …’ ‘That is being unreasonable and unkind after all these years I have served you loyally … Nobody has the right to keep a person like a prisoner against his will, sir!’ Anand was taken aback by Kumar’s retort. He knew the situation was getting from bad to worse. ‘How dare you talk to me like that! You won’t get a pie of your salary if you leave, you impertinent rascal …’ he yelled. ‘I don’t want it. You can keep it. I am leaving at once,’ Kumar responded. ‘Go! You will come back when your drama company collapses and your director becomes a pauper and kicks you out!’ ‘No, I won’t come back to this house. Don’t worry. I would rather beg on the streets …’ Kumar replied sharply and left. He went to his room, collected his things in his tin trunk and departed without taking leave of Anand. Outraged and humiliated, Anand sat helplessly feeling as if it was the servant who had dismissed him. It took a long time for the family to reconcile to the loss of Kumar and adjust itself to the new set-up consisting of three servants instead of one Kumar. Anand could not forget the disgrace he had suffered in the hands of Kumar. The only saving grace was that there had been no witnesses to the painful scene. Since that time not a day passed when Anand did not think of the episode and smarted silently. The passing of time, months and years did not heal the wound. He tried to twist and remould the occurrence in many ways to see himself emerge triumphant and Kumar vanquished. But nothing worked. One day some years later one of the boys came running from the school crying out, ‘Kumar! It’s Kumar! …’ And everyone who was at home rushed out at once, asking, ‘Where? OurKumar?’

‘Yes, near that circle on top of that sweetmeat shop there is a hoarding. On that there is a huge cinema poster of Kumar with two girls …’ Meanwhile the whole household had gathered round the boy to listen to his account. Anand put on his chappals and walked to the circle. There, ten times of life size, was Kumar, looking down at him with a gun in his hand and two pretty girls by his side. ‘Dawn of Love, Kumar Chandra in the lead,’ the poster announced. Other members of the family came home to announce there was another hoarding in the market square, wall posters at various places, cut-outs etc. A few days later phone calls began pestering Anand asking, ‘Is it the same boy who was your cook in Dawn of Love? Not bad at all … very clever fellow. He acts well. Have you seen the movie? No? Well, you must.’

Parvati the Ayah

Ramesh, another friend of Ganesh’s, now took up the narrative. He had a grandson, the apple of the eye of the entire household like all grandchildren were. This brat, though just two years old, was awfully mischievous and intelligent for his age. If for a moment you took your eyes off him he was sure to be trying to get involved in some terrible accident. He would draw the tablecloth with the fruit bowl, cups and saucers, flower vase and water jug on it and jerk these dangerously to the edge of the table and on to his head finally if he was not saved in time. Or he would get entangled in the wire connected to the table fan, or stand on the first step leading to the garden precariously balancing himself. Of course, the child’s mother took as much care as possible, feeding him, bathing him, playing with him, telling him stories and putting him to sleep. But each step was a Herculean task as the little fellow protested, howled, kicked about and gave endless trouble all the way. His mother was completely tired out at the end of the day. She had some spare time of her

own only when the child slept; this was when she rested and relaxed, took a bath, wrote letters, or read. It was a tiresome task for a young person. Her mother-in-law could not be of help in looking after the child as she was suffering from asthma and the slightest strain sent her coughing, doubling her up. Ramesh’s son was employed in a firm in Dubai and so decided to hire an ayah to provide some relief to the young mother. The first one agreed cheerfully to do everything, look after the child, wash the clothes, collect the scattered toys from various corners of the house and arrange them. But she lasted exactly one day. She left when both the mother and baby were asleep without even taking leave. The next one who came would ask for tea every half an hour. When it was refused she created a scene and called her prospective employers miserly. She said the previous house she had worked in not only gave her tea but biscuits and bread. Of course, she was rejected. The next applicant suited the family by way of salary and work schedule. She was employed but during the short time she lasted in the household as ayah she nearly killed the child through sheer neglect. She would simply look on unperturbed while the child unsteadily climbed the steep steps of the staircase or played in the water in a tub large enough to drown him or put stone pebbles in his mouth. The ayah was quite happy to work in the house but for the sake of the child she was dismissed. Finally an experienced looking middle-aged woman arrived on the scene. Within a day she endeared herself to the child as well as to the family. She hardly made any demands, and spoke only when spoken to. She suited the job ideally. But she rarely smiled. She went about playing with the child, telling him stories, humming while putting him to sleep, all with a sorrowful face. When the child slept she sat next to the cot staring into the void with a fixed gaze for hours. Gradually it was learnt she was a war widow. Her husband had died in one of the border skirmishes with the neighbouring country. She had no children, nor any relatives to care for her. In course of time she had wandered away from her village looking for a job along with a few others with similar missions.

Among other jobs she did she had hauled bricks at a building construction area. For a time she chopped wood at a fuel depot. Then at a rice mill she filled husk in gunny bags. After doing some such odd jobs she became an ayah at Ramesh’s house to look after the two-year-old. As days went by the child seemed to grow more attached to the ayah than he was to his mother. Soon the mother, freed from the responsibility of looking after the child, became socially active; she spent time visiting friends and going to movies. She also became interested in handicrafts and learnt to make paper flowers, fans and soft toys. These she donated to charity homes. Thus the young lady lived a happy existence, cuddling and playing with the child only when she was free from her other activities. The ayah was now in complete charge and the child did not seem to miss its mother. When she had to look after the child one constantly heard her shouting, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that! No! No! No! Look out! Don’t touch that! Don’t stand on it! You will get hurt!’ All her anxiety did not seem to evoke any response from the little fellow. But the avail seemed to have some hypnotic influence over the child. Sitting down in one place she conducted the child without raising her voice in a safe path through the cluster of furniture, thorny bushes in the garden, steps in the house and other hazards of which a child was prone to be a victim.

One morning Ramesh standing in the veranda of the house was watching his grandson playing with the ayah under the margosa tree. He saw a tall bearded man in a white shirt and khaki pants held up by a broad leather belt approach the gate hesitantly. He stood watching the child and the ayah. Ramesh got anxious; he might be a child lifter! He caught the attention of the ayah and signalled to her. She looked puzzled for a moment and then suddenly covered her head with the saree in one sweep, picked up the child and dashed to the veranda. Ramesh got alarmed, dropped the book he was reading and asked, ‘Why are you running away? Who is that fellow?’ The ayah set the child down and with a bashful smile said, ‘My husband!’ Ramesh had never seen such an expression on her face. He said, ‘But he died in the war! Didn’t he?’ The ayah looked perplexed and looked helplessly at her husband and at the master alternately. Then the visitor said, ‘No, sir. Actually I was taken a prisoner.’ He stood grinning.

Meanwhile the child was tugging at the end of the ayah’s saree, trying to take her back to the shade under the tree. He would not let her talk to her resurrected husband. He stamped his feet and screamed. No amount of pleading and cajoling would help. His mother came out hearing the cries and gave him a couple of smart slaps on the bottom and started shouting; but still the child refused to get into the house and leave the couple alone. The ayah was caught between her affection for the child and the duty she owed her husband. The neighbours opened their windows and peered out at the ruckus mat was going on next door. Although eating chocolate was usually restricted to only once a day, the mother was now desperately trying to tempt the child with a whole bar of chocolate. Thankfully this worked and the child quietly followed his mother into the house. The ayah’s husband stayed on, hanging around the garden on the day of his arrival. Parvati would take a quick short break from her duty when the child was with his grandmother, rush to her husband, exchange a few words and dash back. As dusk fell she fed the child and put it to sleep. When the mother returned home the ayah went and sat under the tree near the gate talking to her husband. Ramesh saw their vague forms in the dark. When he stepped out of the house for jogging early next morning he saw the ex-soldier sleeping curled up in a corner of the veranda. At noon he saw him washing himself and his clothes under the garden tap. The ayah shared her lunch and dinner with him. At night the man retired to the corner in the veranda to sleep and she returned to her usual place next to the child’s cot. Everything went on with precarious rhythm, the daughter-in-law keeping her social rounds, the ayah giving her undivided attention to the child and her husband vaguely wandering in the garden. No one wanted to disturb the undefined arrangement. One day a nodding acquaintance of Ramesh’s who lived in a housing complex close by greeted him. ‘Hello, my name is Gajanan. I live on the third floor in that flat. You have kept a watchman, I see. Considering the number of burglaries and murders one hears about these days it is very wise of you not to depend on the police but to make your own arrangement for security

… Tell me, where did you get him from? I see he is a very conscientious chap. Do you think he could keep an eye on our housing society as well during the daytime? I am the secretary and I can fix his salary and so on. Do please ask him and let me know.’ They chatted for a while about the increase in crime rate, corruption among the police force and politicians, CTBT and so on before they parted. A few days later Gajanan had a talk with the watchman who gladly accepted the new post. The ayah was delighted. The daughter-in-law’s joy knew no bounds. ‘Never before has the servant problem been solved so satisfactorily all round,’ Ramesh mentioned proudly to his friends. Then he added, ‘Of course, that was many years ago. What happened later is another story …’

Anthony the Chauffeur

The next on Gancsh’s ‘Servants of India’ list was Anthony, a car driver. Mr Krishnan had retired after four decades of loyal service in a reputed export company. In all these years he had never given a thought to his accommodation, telephone and car—all of which he would be losing on retirement. After some makeshift arrangements he found a two-bedroom flat far away from the hub of activity he had been used to all these years. He got a telephone connection too in a surprisingly short time after talking to people with influence in the telephone department and greasing the palms of several senior and junior officials concerned. As for a car, it was the easiest to get. New models of cars were flooding the market, and loans to buy them were being offered by banks thorough attractive advertisements in the newspapers.

So tempting were they that a person who could not afford even a bicycle went for a car. Mr Krishnan applied for a loan and booked a small red car that he saw standing in the showroom. It was delivered in a surprisingly short time at his doorstep (as the ad had claimed). Mr Krishnan knew nothing about cars, nor about driving. He was used to sitting in the rear seat of chauffeur-driven official cars reading the chairman’s speech or the annual report of some company or the agenda for the board meetings or correcting proofs of speeches he had to deliver. Now it broke his heart to sec the immobile red vehicle in the parking lot. Finally he procured a driver through the transport section of his old office. On the first day Damodar the driver gave Krishnan and his wife a ride round the town in the new car. Damodar was in high spirits and explained the various good points of the car, the music system, the air conditioner, the cellular phone charger etc., admiring the ingenuity of the Japanese. He demonstrated the smoothness of the steering, the powerful pick-up and the efficiency of the power brake system, jolting the passengers about in the rear seat in the process. Damodar’s salary was disproportionate to the duties he had to perform. In the morning he had to drive Mrs Krishnan to an ayurvedic clinic where she was a consultant, and had to bring her back after a couple of hours. Mr Krishnan would be busy in the meantime with his financial affairs, investment stocks and shares etc. Then he would dress up to go to the local club to play bridge till lunchtimc. After leaving the master in the club, Damodar would bring Mrs Krishnan back home. Since she would be busy with the household work she hardly went out. Damodar just hung around the parking lot waiting for the time to fetch Krishnan from the club. After that he was free unless Mr Krishnan had to visit his dentist or unless the lady wanted to go shopping or drop in on her friends. The couple congratulated themselves on having got a driver who was loyal, uncomplaining, punctual and efficient. Krishnan was very proud of Damodar and boasted to his friends how he had made the selection after

subjecting the applicant to exacting questions and rigorous examination, and how liberal he was with fixing his salary. A few months later Damodar let the Krishnans down by not turning up for duty. Mrs Krishnan had to go to the clinic in a taxi and Krishnan skipped his bridge session. The driver absented himself for several days. One day Krishnan was surprised to see Damodar merrily driving his bridge partner’s car. Later the partner told him grinning that Damodar had offered his services for a slightly higher salary. It was months before Krishnan was able to procure Anthony. He was a tall thin character who could easily double for James Bond with slight changes in his complexion, shape of the nose and hairstyle. Anthony’s unhurried duty left him with a lot of free time. One morning, when he was returning home after dropping Mrs Krishnan at the ayurvedic clinic, he saw some office-goers at the bus-stop thumbing passing cars for a lift. Anthony slowed down, picked up three hitchhikers and dropped them off at their offices. He was surprised when they gave handsome tips when they got off. Anthony began to pick up short-distance passengers whenever the car was shuttling between one place and another without legitimate occupants. Thus he collected quite a packet by way of tips at the end of the day. Once in a while Anthony would tell Krishnan he was taking the car for servicing or minor repairs and disappear for a long time, giving lifts to people in a hurry. Krishnan who was totally ignorant about cars did not notice the steady increase in petrol consumption, the frequent need for servicing and wheel alignment etc. He just paid the petrol bills when presented with them.

One day Krishnan was sitting in the car which was stuck in traffic during peak hour. Suddenly a smartly dressed young man carrying a briefcase opened the rear door with a snappy ‘Hi Anthony’ and jumped into the car. Mumbling ‘You are late today’, he took out a cell phone and spoke urgently into it: ‘I’m late, I’m sorry. Don’t start the meeting till I come. I think I will make it in a few minutes. Awful traffic jam!’ Turning his attention to the driver, he said, ‘Anthony, please drop me at the post office corner.’ He then took out some papers from the briefcase and began to go through them. When he got out he handed over some cash to Anthony and hurried away, weaving a path through a mixture of vehicles, pedestrians, hawkers and beggars who were moving in all directions. It was all so sudden. Krishnan remained a dumb spectator throughout. After some time he asked, ‘What’s going on, Anthony?’ ‘Where, sir?’ ‘That man, who was he?’ ‘He wanted a lift, sir.’ ‘But he seemed to know you. He called you by your name.’ ‘Once I gave him a lift, sir. When he couldn’t find a taxi.’ The explanation left Krishnan in deep doubt about Anthony’s honesty. He was giving lifts to strange people on the road for money! In fact Krishnan had

sometimes seen people trying to wave down his car while passing a bus stand. Krishnan did not want to go into the details and end up losing Anthony. ‘After dropping master at the club or madam at the clinic the car is empty and I thought there was no harm in giving some people a lift,’ Anthony said casually. The explanation seemed quite logical. On hearing it Mrs Krishnan at first lauded Anthony’s helpful nature. But soon it dawned on her that he was actually misusing the car behind their back. Both husband and wife, however, were at a loss to find a solution to the problem. They could not let him take them for a ride and made suckers out of them under their own noses, letting strangers use their car as a taxi. They came to the conclusion that there was no use in warning Anthony and ordering him not to misuse the car. He was in sole charge of the car most of the time with no one to keep a watch on him. They decided to warn him in a tactful way and avoid the risk of losing his service. ‘The best thing is to tell him that one of your friend’s drivers was cheating his master by using his car as a taxi and he was caught and was handed over to the police …’ Mrs Krishnan suggested. ‘What a brilliant idea,’ Krishnan responded sarcastically. ‘He is not a dumb fellow! He would immediately realize I am referring to him and throw the car keys on my face and depart. It has got to be completely indirect …’ ‘Supposing he does not get the point and continues his taxi business. How are you going to catch him? By standing in the bus stand?’ Mrs Krishnan asked cynically. ‘Oh, you leave all that to me. I will handle it. One must have an imaginative approach to the problem. I will create a purely fictitious situation and narrate it to him without letting on that I’m actually referring to him. You wait and see …’ ‘How will he know it is him you arc accusing if you are going to be vague, tell me,’ the wife insisted. Krishnan lost his patience and said, ‘Will you please mind your own business and leave this matter to me? Please don’t interfere.’

‘But the other day when Anthony came late you wanted me to deal with him … Why? Now you behave as if …’ she shouted back. A couple of weeks later Krishnan came to her room beaming and announced, ‘Anthony realized his mistake. He apologized most humbly to me and promised never again to betray the trust I have in him. The poor boy was on the verge of tears …’ ‘How did you do that? How did you make him realize he was deceiving us?’ his wife asked, exuding admiration for her husband. ‘Ah, that is called tact, diplomacy, strategy, cleverness … that’s why I said, leave it to me. Don’t interfere. I have handled hundreds of such fellows in my job …’ Everything went on smoothly after this for several months. Anthony was behaving himself without any cause for complaint or suspicion. One day as Krishnan was dressing up to go to the club the telephone rang. Krishnan picked it up and heard a voice ask, ‘Excuse me, is it Mr Krishnan’s residence? Well, please tell Anthony not to look for Sham Pyarelal at the post office this morning … Thank you.’ Krishnan put the receiver down totally disillusioned and looked out of the window. He saw Anthony cleaning the car. He always kept it sparkling.

Iswaran the Storyteller

Ganesh was in two minds about whether he should include the story of Iswaran in his chronicle ‘Servants of India’. It really seemed too strange to be credible. Finally he decided to use it, thinking that after all reality sometimes bordered closely on the fantastic. The story was narrated to Ganesh by a young man, Mahendra by name. He was a junior supervisor in a firm which offered on hire supervisors at various types of construction sites: factories, bridges, dams, and so on. Mahendra’s job was to keep an eye on the activities at the work site. He had to keep moving from place to place every now and then as ordered by his head office: from a coal mining area to a railway bridge construction site, from there after a few months to a chemical plant which was coming up somewhere.

He was a bachelor. His needs were simple and he was able to adjust himself to all kinds of odd conditions, whether it was an ill-cquipped circuit house or a makeshift canvas tent in the middle of a stone quarry. But one asset he had was his cook, Iswaran. The cook was quite attached to Mahendra and followed him uncomplainingly wherever he was posted. He cooked for Mahendra, washed his clothes and chatted away with his master at night. He could weave out endless stories and anecdotes on varied subjects. Iswaran also had an amazing capacity to produce vegetables and cooking ingredients seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of a desolate landscape with no shops visible for miles around. He would miraculously conjure up the most delicious dishes made with fresh vegetables within an hour of arriving at the zinc-sheet shelter at the new workplace. Mahendra would be up early in the morning and leave for work after breakfast, carrying some prepared food with him. Meanwhile Iswaran would tidy up the shed, wash the clothes, and have a leisurely bath, pouring several buckets of water over his head, muttering a prayer all the while. It would be lunchtime by then. After eating, he would read for a while before dozing off. The book was usually some popular Tamil thriller running to hundreds of pages. Its imaginative descriptions and narrative flourishes would hold Iswaran in thrall. His own descriptions were gready influenced by the Tamil authors that he read. When he was narrating even the smallest of incidents, he would try to work in suspense and a surprise ending into the account. For example, instead of saying that he had come across an uprooted tree on the highway, he would say, with eyebrows suitably arched and hands held out in a dramatic gesture, ‘The road was deserted and I was all alone. Suddenly I spotted something that looked like an enormous bushy beast lying sprawled across the road. I was half inclined to turn and go back. But as I came closer I saw that it was a fallen tree, with its dry branches spread out.’ Mahendra would stretch himself back in his canvas chair and listen to Iswaran’s tales uncritically. ‘The place I come from is famous for timber,’ Iswaran would begin. ‘There is a richly wooded forest all around. The logs are hauled on to the lorries by elephants. They are huge well-fed beasts. When they turn wild even the most

experienced mahout is not able to control them.’ After this prologue Iswaran would launch into an elaborate anecdote involving an elephant. ‘One day a tusker escaped from the timber yard and began to roam about, stamping on bushes, tearing up wild creepers and breaking branches at will. You know, sir, how an elephant behaves when it goes mad.’ Iswaran would get so caught up in the excitement of his own story that he would get up from the floor and jump about, stamping his feet in emulation of the mad elephant. ‘The elephant reached the outskirts of our town, breaking the fences down like matchsticks,’ he would continue. ‘It came into the main road and smashed all the stalls selling fruits, mud pots and clothes. People ran helterskelter in panic! The elephant now entered a school ground where children were playing, breaking through the brick wall. All the boys ran into the classrooms and shut the doors tight. The beast grunted and wandered about, pulling out the football goalpost, tearing down the volleyball net, kicking and flattening the drum kept for water, and uprooting the shrubs. Meanwhile all the teachers had climbed up to the terrace of the school building; from there they helplessly watched the depredations of the elephant. There was not a soul below on the ground. The streets were empty as if the inhabitants of the entire town had suddenly disappeared. ‘I was studying in the junior class at that time, and was watching the whole drama from the rooftop. I don’t know what came over me suddenly. I grabbed a cane from the hands of one of the teachers and ran down the stairs and into the open. The elephant grunted and menacingly swung a branch of a tree which it held in its trunk. It stamped its feet, kicking up a lot of mud and dust. It looked frightening. But I moved slowly towards it, stick in hand. People were watching the scene hypnotized from nearby housetops. The elephant looked at me red-eyed, ready to rush towards me. It lifted its trunk and trumpeted loudly. At that moment I moved forward and, mustering all my force, whacked its third toenail on the quick. The beast looked stunned for a moment; then it shivered from head to foot—and collapsed.’ At this point Iswaran would leave the story unfinished, and get up mumbling, ‘I will be back after lighting the gas and warming up the dinner.’ Mahendra who had been listening with rapt attention would be left hanging.

When he returned, Iswaran would not pick up the thread of the story right away. Mahendra would have to remind him that the conclusion was pending. ‘Well, a veterinary doctor was summoned to revive the animal,’ Iswaran would shrug casually. ‘Two days later it was led away by its mahout to the jungle.’ ‘Well, how did you manage to do it, Iswaran—how did you bring down the beast?’ ‘It has somerthing to do with Japanese art, I think, sir. Karate or jujitsu it is called. I had read about it somewhere. It temporarily paralyses the nervous system, you see.’ Not a day passed without Iswaran recounting some story packed with adventure, horror and suspense. Whether the story was credible or not, Mahendra enjoyed listening to it because of the inimitable way in which it was told. Iswaran seemed to more than make up for the absence of a TV in Mahendra’s living quarters. One morning when Mahendra was having breakfast Iswaran asked, ‘Can I make something special for dinner tonight, sir? After all today is an auspicious day—according to tradition we prepare various delicacies to feed the spirits of our ancestors today, sir.’ That night Mahendra enjoyed the most delicious dinner and complimented Iswaran on his culinary skills. He seemed very pleased but unexpectedly launched into a most garish account involving the supernatural. ‘You know, sir, this entire factory area we are occupying was once a burial ground,’ he started. Mahendra was jerked out of the pleasant reverie he had drifted into after the satisfying meal. ‘I knew on the first day itself when I saw a human skull lying on the path. Even now I come across a number of skulls and bones,’ Iswaran continued.

He went on to narrate how he sometimes saw ghosts at night. ‘I am not easily frightened by these things, sir. I am a brave fellow. But one horrible ghost of a woman which appears off and on at midnight during the full moon … It is an ugly creature with matted hair and a shrivelled face, like a skeleton holding a foetus in its arms.’ Mahendra shivered at the description and interrupted rather sharply, ‘You are crazy, Iswaran. There are no such things as ghosts or spirits. It is all a figment of your imagination. Get your digestive system examined—and maybe your head as well. You are talking nonsense.’ He left the room and retired for the night, expecting Iswaran to sulk for a couple of days. But the next morning he was surprised to find the cook as cheerful and talkative as ever. From that day on Mahendra for all his brave talk went to bed with a certain unease. Every night he peered into the darkness outside through the window next to his bed, trying to make sure that there was no movement of dark shapes in the vicinity. But he could only see a sea of darkness with the twinkling lights of the factory miles away.

He had always liked to admire the milk-white landscape on full moon nights. But after hearing Iswaran’s story of the female ghost he avoided looking out of his window altogether when the moon was full. One night Mahendra was woken up from his sleep by a low moan close to his window. At first he put it down to a cat prowling around for mice. But the sound was too guttural for a cat. He resisted the curiosity to look out lest he should behold a sight which would stop his heart. But the wailing became louder and less feline. He could not resist the temptation any more. Lowering himself to the level of the windowsill he looked out at the white sheet of moonlight outside. There, not too far away, was a dark cloudy form clutching a bundle. Mahendra broke into a cold sweat and fell back on the pillow, panting. As he gradually recovered from the ghastly experience he began to reason with himself, and finally concluded that it must have been some sort of auto suggestion, some trick that his subconscious had played on him. By the time he had got up in the morning, had a bath and come out to have his breakfast, the horror of the previous night had faded from his memory. Iswaran greeted him at the door with his lunch packet and his bag. Just as Mahendra was stepping out Iswaran grinned and said, ‘Sir, remember the other day when I telling you about the female ghost with a foetus in its arms, you were so angry with me for imagining things? Well, you saw her yourself last night. I came running hearing the sound of moaning that was coming from your room …’ A chili went down Mahendra’s spine. He did not wait for Iswaran to complete his sentence. He hurried away to his office and handed in his papers, resolving to leave the haunted place the very next day!

Ramu the Retainer

The next episode recounted to Ganesh was by his friend Balu. Balu had recently sold his old house in an isolated part of the suburb and moved into a posh area in the city. He had taken an apartment in a housing complex called The Lotus Estate. It had seven blocks of buildings, each ten storeys high, built around a garden. The three-bedroom flat that Balu had was comfortable enough for his family which consisted of his wife, his aged mother and his ten-year-old son. He also had a cook and a servant boy named Ramu. In fact The Lotus Estate was swarming with cooks, drivers, ayahs, gardeners, watchmen etc. Balu’s wife had looked upon this initially as a great advantage. She thought that if one of her servants left she could always lean

out of the balcony and ask any passing servant of a neighbour to find a substitute. On the whole The Lotus Estate had a congenial atmosphere complete with flowering trees and a pleasant view of the sea. But it was a pretty noisy place with cars honking on their way in and out (despite a notice saying ‘No Horn, Please’), and watchmen shooing away boys who were trying to play cricket in the compound. Balu had to go down many a time to ask the cleaner of a swanky car not to turn on the car radio while washing the car. There were always loud arguments and quarrels among various types of helping hands who worked in the estate. The sweeper women would be shouting at the maidservants for dumping rubbish in the garden, or someone’s cook would be telling off someone else’s servant at the top of his voice. Once the police had to be summoned to separate two uniformed chauffeurs who were at each other’s throat, intent on establishing their parking rights. When any such incident occurred, Balu would see Ramu watching the scene with undue glee. He would even abandon the work on hand and rush downstairs to have a closer look at the fight. Balu suspected that the boy might have had a hand in some of the fights himself. He was a great gossipmonger. It could not be put beyond Ramu, felt Balu, to carry tales to two servants against one another. It required a certain moral courage on Balu’s part to deal with Ramu. He was argumentative, lazy, a work shirker and a liar. Not a day passed without arguments or a shouting match between Ramu and one member or the other of the family. But despite these shortcomings Ramu had managed to last in Balu’s household for quite a few years. He was always on the verge of being dismissed, but Balu or his wife had a change of heart at the last minute and kept him on. One of the standard complaints against Ramu was that he bothered the other occupants of the estate. Apparendy he made faces at servants or cooks in the opposite row of buildings when he was looking out of the window. Once an ayah pushing a pram complained to Balu when he was taking a walk in the garden that Ramu had teased the kid and made it cry. He had bounced a softball on its head and made it howl, and then snatched away the doll the kid

was hugging and made it scream. Of course, Ramu looked innocent and denied all the charges when confronted with these accusations. In Balu’s household itself the cook had a suspicion that Ramu pilfered snacks, sweets, biscuits and other edibles. Balu’s wife shared the suspicion but asked the excited cook to calm down just to avoid problems that would arise out of trying to punish Ramu. If anyone tried to put him in his place Ramu would sulk and neglect his work; when sent out to buy some bananas he would return after ages and say that the banana seller was not in the usual corner, so he had had to go hunting for her all over the place. The grandmother would often shout at Ramu for not sweeping under the cot regularly. She would pick up the broom herself angrily and sweep out mountains of dust, torn pieces of paper, dead dried-up insects, some odd medical tablets, and clouds of cobwebs from under the cot. Ramu would watch the result of his neglect with injured innocence while Balu, his wife and the old lady were all barking at him. The only friend he had in the house was Balu’s ten-year-old son, Shankar. They spent a lot of time together playing indoor games like carrom, ludo, snakes and ladders and also ping pong on the dining table when adults were not around; sometimes they even played cricket in the dining hall, endangering precious glassware and porcelain flower vases. When any item was damaged during such sessions Ramu ably protected young vShankar and himself by weaving out a convincing story about an interloper in the shape of a huge bandicoot which had ran amuck inside the house, climbing up the almirahs, jumping on to the dining table and running under the cot, toppling over and breaking things that lay in its path. Finally it had been chased by Ramu to the balcony from where it had jumped to the garden five floors below. Balu congratulated Ramu for his effort and looked sadly at the broken pieces of Belgian glass and the shattered photo frames. That was not all. Once Ramu was caught deflating the tyres of a car. Another time he somehow got hold of the key of a car and made its owner, driver and cleaner go round and round searching for it, till Ramu suddenly announced that he had found it under the staircase! Everyone looked at him

doubtfully. His reputation had dipped pretty low. The needle of suspicion pointed to him clearly. Thanks to Ramu’s behaviour Balu had become unpopular in the estate. The residents and their servants hoped Balu would get rid of the boy soon. There were phone calls and letters blaming Ramu for petty thefts, broken padlocks on doors, and letterboxes stuffed with rubbish. Balu decided to have a high power conference with his wife and mother to find a way to eliminate Ramu from the estate. After hours of discussions, suggestions, arguments and counter-arguments, it was decided the status quo should be maintained until a suitable substitute for Ramu was found. For now Ramu was to be given a severe warning and kept under strict control. Everyone felt satisfied that they had found a solution to Ramu’s problem; but they knew in their hearts that they had just swept the issue under the carpet, like they had done so many times before. Balu summoned Ramu to give him a long sermon on good behaviour, honesty and respect to fellow humans. The second part of his lecture was about the retribution that evildoers who hurt God-fearing innocent people had to face. The third part concerned what Balu would do to Ramu if one more complaint was heard about his conduct from any domestic, watchman, driver, ayah or estate resident. Ramu denied every charge levelled against him and painted himself as an angel come to serve Balu as his humble slave. After extracting a strict promise from him that he was never to make mischief again, Balu ordered Ramu to get back to his duties. During the course of the conversation Balu’s wife and mother were requested to confine themselves to their rooms to avoid further arguments. Balu was not satisfied with his performance. Ramu’s expression while he was being harangued showed no trace of remorse, regret or repentance. He kept looking out of the window vaguely or studied his fingernails with keen interest as if Balu was addressing someone else over his head! For a couple of weeks after this Ramu’s behaviour was keenly watched not only by everyone in Balu’s household but also by those in the estate who had known Ramu and his record. No cause for complaint was found. Of course, there were stray reports of a hubcap missing or an electric bulb stolen. Balu

treated these as false allegations concocted by Ramu’s enemies just to spite him. Gradually, the state of affairs in the estate returned to normal. Then, one afternoon, when Balu was taking a quiet nap after lunch, the doorbell rang aggressively. Balu woke up with a start and rushed to the door. Ramu was already there, holding the door ajar. The gurkha watchman who was at the door was glaring at Ramu as if he was going to thrash him to death. Balu intervened quickly and did his best to calm the watchman down. What, he then asked, had happened. The watchman told the story in one breath. Apparently Ramu had bolted the door to the servants’ toilet from outside. The servants who were locked in were screaming and banging away on the door. But the toilet being in an isolated corner of the estate, no one could hear them. The watchman who was wandering around the garden had finally heard the noise, hurried to the toilet and opened the door. All four servants had rushed out yelling, ‘Ramu! Ramu, that rascal, is up to his old tricks again …!’ Balu saw red. He caught hold of Ramu by the neck and hurled him out of the house saying, ‘Bastard—never come here again!’ The watchman had not expected such a volcanic eruption; he tried to say something, but changed his mind and quickly slunk away down the stairs. The moment the door was shut Balu’s mother and wife rushed out applauding him. ‘You did the right thing at last. You should have done it long ago …’ It came as a great relief to Balu that both women approved of his action. Meanwhile, Ramu had moved, howling and weeping, to a spot under a tree in the garden below. He was protesting his innocence to anyone who cared to hear. He completely denied the charge against him. He sobbed that he came from a poor family, that he had no father or mother, that he was an orphan. He was actually addressing no one in particular. His audience—drivers, ayahs, sweepers, servants, cooks and a few who lived in that apartment block —listened to his woes for a moment, saw his cascading tears and moved on unconcernedly.

It was past his dinnertime. Balu’s wife took help from her neighbour’s servant and sent Ramu some food wrapped in a banana leaf. The servant returned and said Ramu had eaten it and asked for some tea. Balu’s wife had been under the impression that Ramu would refuse the food. The whole household felt relieved and happy at his acceptance and quickly a cup of tea was made and sent down. Early next morning Balu saw a group of people standing around the tree Ramu had been sitting under. After a while Balu noticed that the group had increased in size; he could not see Ramu at all. Balu hoped Ramu had not fallen ill or committed suicide! At that moment the telephone rang and his heart missed a beat. The voice on the telephone said, ‘I am one of your neighbours. This boy Ramu, your servant, has been crying non-stop since yesterday. Please do something and pacify him. I know he does tend to be mischievous. Only the other day he broke the lock of our parrot cage kept in our front veranda and set free two of my prized parrots. Still, I think you should …’ Then the doorbell rang and a bunch of neighbouring servants trooped in; they had come to plead for Ramu. Later Balu’s mother and wife began to murmur sympathetically about Ramu and hinted at pacifying him and

bringing him back. Balu heard them say: ‘Poor boy! He is punished enough … After all nobody is an angel …’ Balu’s wife had also opened up a supply line with the help of the neighbours’ servants to send Ramu food, snacks and tea from time to time. The phone kept ringing as well, with callers recording their sympathy for Ramu. Balu could not go out without his neighbours accosting him to tell him about Ramu’s miserable state. ‘Poor boy, he’s an orphan. He is starving. He has no place to go to.’ Balu did not argue and try to tell them that he knew that Ramu’s father and mother were very much alive and that he had a houseful of brothers and sisters and relatives as well. He was simply amazed by the enormous popular sympathy Ramu had gained after being kicked out of the house. Balu felt that there was a risk that he himself might become unpopular in the estate if he went against the popular sympathy that prevailed for the boy. Or he might lose face if he was seen suddenly under the tree in the garden. Everyone who saw him would think he had gone to beg Ramu to come back home! The prospect began to assume nightmarish proportions with each passing day. The managing committee of the housing society sent Balu an official letter asking him to make arrangements to shift Ramu out of the estate property as soon as possible since he was no longer a domestic belonging to any tenant in the estate. One day Balu had gone out on some work; when he returned home and rang the bell he was shocked to see Ramu opening the door with a broad grin on his face.

Narasimha the Terrible

The final episode on Ganesh’s list was that of Narasimha. Narasimha began his career as a cook at the age of fourteen. He dropped out of school and picked up the culinary profession after a fight with his father, refusing to help him on the small banana plantation he had. First he was a kitchen hand in a highway Udipi hotel where he learnt cooking. But he could not last there long. The head cook found Narasimha too anxious to take over from him. This resulted in the spoiling of a few dishes, leading to arguments and tension in the kitchen and delay in service to the customers waiting in the dining hall. Narasimha could not continue in the hostile atmosphere that became more and more intense with each passing day. He left the Udipi hotel and joined the service of a couple who had just got married and set up home. They were so charmed by each other’s company that they did not bother about the

quality of food, nor did they question his way of preparing the dishes. The lady of the house knew nothing about cooking and left Narasimha free to improve his standards through trial and error. But some months later the young man was transferred to some other town and the couple gave notice to Narasimha, who had to pack up and leave. After that he worked in many households, restaurants and hotels. But he could not last anywhere very long because temperamentally he was arrogant and short-tempered. He had to hop from place to place constandy looking for a job. Finally he landed up at Nalanda Caterers. He stayed on here long enough to become an integral part of the business. The catering business was conducted from a small room with a table, a chair and a telephone. One Ranga Rao occupied the chair and took orders from customers; they provided cooks to prepare dinners and lunches during marriages and festivals, birthday parties and other celebrations. Rao was a quiet non-interfering person. In course of time, Narasimha became his right-hand man and supervised the dozen cooks Rao had under him. Narasimha answered the phone calls, took orders, assigned the cooks for the jobs, and prepared the menu while his boss sat in the chair mutely observing the goings-on. Narasimha became more and more aggressive in his behaviour. His voice had become guttural and loud. His bushy eyebrows were constantly knit together, signifying general disapproval. The staff dreaded him. Gradually Ranga Rao stopped coming to the office and left the running of the business to Narasimha. One of Narasimha’s clients was a Dr Raghu Raj. He was a well-known medical practitioner and had a large circle of friends and relatives. For many years, he had rendered free medical service to people in backward rural areas. In appreciation of his service the Government of India conferred the title of Padma Shree on him. This honour obliged him to throw a cocktail and dinner party in a manner befitting his status. He lived in a big bungalow with a vast green lawn. He decided to hold the party in the garden for the hundred-odd select guests he wanted to invite.

He assigned the dinner arrangements to one of his nephews, a smart fellow called Sambu. Sambu who had heard of Nalanda Caterers stepped into Narasimha’s office one morning. Narasimha stared at the young visitor unsmilingly, knitting his already knit brows even further. And from the depth of his lungs he gruffly pronounced, ‘Sit down.’ Sambu regretted coming to Narasimha’s office at once. For a few minutes they discussed the number of invitees to the party, the sort of dishes required, and so on. Sambu felt annoyed by Narasimha’s peculiar style of questioning and answering and felt like leaving and looking for some other caterer. But as the dialogue proceeded Sambu began to get a kick out of the eccentric manner in which Narasimha discussed the menu. ‘Brinjal is God’s own creation. You must have a preparation of that. I won’t say the same thing of pumpkin.’ All this was said with a belligerent expression. Suddenly Narasimha bellowed ‘Govinda!’ staring at the door leading to the interior. ‘Coming!’ said a voice. ‘What do you mean, coming! Drop everything and rush here at once!’ Narasimha shouted, his forehead furrowing as he looked furiously at the door. When Govinda appeared he voiced some doubts about certain preparations and dismissed him abruptly. Thus for nearly an hour Sambu derived a private entertainment while they discussed the catering. On the day of the dinner, half a dozen cooks, along with provisions and vessels were brought to Dr Raghu Raj’s bungalow in a private van. Sambu sat relaxed in a chair on the veranda, surrounded by close relatives and friends after the mid-day meal. He was telling stories about his office, its politics, his boss and his mannerisms. He kept the gathering roaring with laughter. He was a good mimic and knew how to weave a narrative thread. His listeners relaxed, responding to his subde touches of humour. One anecdote led to another; from the imitation of his boss in the office he moved on to the colleagues he worked with, then to the tax officials he had to deal with. Finally he regaled the admiring audience with his latest experience: the story of Narasimha and his assistants, who were at that very moment busy

slicing the vegetables, mixing the spices, pounding the rice and boiling water in preparation for the dinner, not too far away. Just as Sambu concluded the hilarious account of Narasimha and his associates, Narasimha who had been sitting quietly in a distant corner strode to the middle of the gathering, stood arms akimbo and bellowed, ‘I am not going to prepare the dinner. I am withdrawing my staff and walking out this minute! I am insulted! Come on boys, drop everything—let’s go!’ He stormed off towards the kitchen.

The audience was struck dumb, suddenly realizing the enormity of the simation. Then everyone said in one voice, ‘Who insulted you? Don’t go, please. Come back, Narasimha!’ With the dinner guests expected in a few hours, this was a recipe for disaster. They waylaid Narasimha at the doorway, preventing him from proceeding towards the kitchen. They pleaded with him and begged him to retreat. He stood unmoved, stubbornly repeating, ‘I am insulted! I am insulted!’

‘What happened?’ everyone asked in unison again. Narasimha stared at the assembled company with eyes blazing like cinders. He roared, ‘You dared to make fun of me and my manners. Didn’t you? Remember nobody ridicules me and makes fun of me! I’ll not cook one grain of rice for you ungrateful lot! Go feed your guests at that cooking joint in the tin shed on the pavement over there …’ Sambu who was responsible for all the dinner arrangements panicked and ran into the house to alert the women. They all rushed to the veranda. With folded hands they begged Narasimha to forgive them and order the cooks to return to the kitchen. They even offered to pay more than what had been agreed upon. But Narasimha stood like a rock unmoved! Finally Dr Raghu Raj was informed at his clinic about the calamity that had occurred. He dropped everything, got into his car and asked the driver to take him home as fast as he could. When he reached home he jumped out of the car at the portico, with the stethoscope still dangling from his neck. He hurried through the crowd towards Narasimha who was still filming like a volcano. Without any change in his expression he brought his palms together, offering cursory respect to the master of the house. ‘What happened, Narasimha?’ said the doctor. ‘I thought we were all friends. This fellow is my nephew. He did not mean to insult you. He has great respect for you, Narasimha, I know it. You are like his elder brother. Forgive him and advise him if he has done anything wrong … for my sake.’ ‘His mimicry made me look like a fool … doctor sir.’ ‘I know, I know! But Sambu did not mean to be disrespectful to you. He will apologize to you if in any way you feel hurt. But that boy has always been like that. Even when he was at school he used to mimic his teachers. He is very good at imitating politicians and makes people laugh …!’ There was a ripple of mirth among the gathering. ‘He does it very well. Great men like Nehru, Radhakrishnan and our chief minister—he imitates them without meaning to be insulting … want to see a sample of it, Narasimha?’ Narasimha seemed somewhat favourably disposed towards the proposition, perhaps feeling honoured to have been counted among eminent men who were fit for mimicry. Without waiting for Narasimha’s formal approval the

doctor summoned his nephew and asked him to show his talent. Sambu hesitated at first but realized the important role he would be playing in averting the crisis. Dr Raghu Raj asked the gathering to be seated. He offered a chair to Narasimha and sat down next to him. First Sambu gave an imitation of hawkers in a railway station, followed by his mimicry of a popular movie actor. After that he came up with a ribtickling imitation of the chief minister. He concluded with a parody of Nehru addressing the nation on the night of 14 August 1947 in a voice vibrating with emotion: ‘… Long ago we made a tryst with destiny … At the stroke of the midnight hour, India will awake to light and freedom …’ By now everyone was doubled up with laughter. Even Narasimha was clapping, a smile on his lips. When it was all over Sambu came to Narasimha and said, ‘I am sorry, Mr Narasimha, if I hurt you in any way.’ Narasimha patted him on the back and said, ‘No … no … not at all. It was a great fun …’ He ambled off towards the kitchen grinning, followed by his staff.

The Saga of Ramaswami

Just after Ganesh had closed his chronicle of the ‘Servants of India’ with the story of Narasimha, he read in the morning paper that his favourite author was coming to town for a short visit. Ganesh was beside himself with excitement. He called out to his wife who was somewhere in the inner rooms, ‘Geetha, Dharmaraj is coming! I must have him over for a cup of tea.’ Soon the tea party was arranged. Along with Dharmaraj a dozen other chosen guests who were his admirers were also invited. The author arrived on time; soon, as was his habit, he was monopolizing the conversation, not giving the others a chance to get a word in edgewise. He was an extremely interesting narrator and kept his listeners spellbound. Halfway through the tea session he asked, ‘Ganesh, I hear you are writing about domestic servants of India. Well you must include this story which comes from my own experience.’

Immediately a hush fell on the room. The guests drew closer to the great man expectantly. Taking a look around him, Dharmaraj began his narrative. Many years ago, a little boy of about eight or so came into our household as a domestic. His name was Ramaswami. He was from Tirunelveli in the south. Severe drought had struck his village—and everyone had been forced to emigrate, looking for food and jobs. Ramaswami had come all the way to Bombay. We liked him at first sight. He had a remarkably bright and cheerful nature; his eyes shone in his dark face. We decided to take him on. But he was too young to be of any real help in the household. So he was assigned the job of keeping our little son company. He played with our son all day long, teaching him all sorts of little tricks and games, and never letting a moment of boredom enter into his waking hours. We had a view of the sea in those days before the skyscrapers sprouted in front of our windows. One day Ramaswami saw a ship like a tiny dot far out on the horizon. He watched it intently without taking his eyes off it till it inched out of sight. Then he turned to me excitedly and questioned me about the sea, the lands across the ocean, life on a ship and so on. I answered as best I could, wondering somewhat about the little fellow’s interest in the sea and ships. In a couple of years, when our son started school, Ramaswami found it difficult to occupy himself. Since we had enough hands at home we promised him that we would find him a suitable job elsewhere. He was lucky. Soon he got a job in a house where the master was distantly connected with shipping activities. We were sorry when Ramaswami went away. He was not a member of our family but he left behind an emptiness as if he had been one.

A few years later he dropped in to see us. Now he seemed taller but the flashing half-moon smile against the dark background of his face remained the same. He spoke in a voice that showed signs of cracking. He announced happily that he was learning to read and write, thanks to his employer’s encouragement. After talking about his village and his uncles who made endless demands on him he was soon talking to me about ships. He had somehow learnt a few simple shipping terms like ‘merchant navy’, ‘cargo vessel’, ‘passenger boat’ etc. and proudly brought these terms into the conversation again and again. I asked him why he was so preoccupied with the sea and ships. They had nothing to do with him or his ethnic background. He came from a farming class. Perhaps no one in his village had had a glimpse of the sea. ‘I have loved the sea from the very first day I saw it,’ he explained simply. Had he the wit and the knowledge, he would perhaps have said: ‘Because it is there!’ Then suddenly Ramaswami disappeared from our lives. Occasionally our cook or the servant gave us fifth-hand news about him. Sometimes the

rumour went round that Ramaswami had left Bombay and had gone back to his village to rescue his father from the harassment of his stepmother. As time progressed there were constant alterations in this plot, villains and victims changing roles and crafty uncles, meanwhile, trying to grab whatever they could while the going was good. The cook and the servant contradicted each other in their respective versions and took sides in a batde taking place a thousand miles away from them. But Ramaswami himself turned up one day and put an end to the controversy. He had gone to his village, he told us, to seek the blessings of his elders before he sailed abroad! He had managed to enrol himself as a sailor in a merchant ship and he was sailing away for Panama. I could not believe my ears. This fellow had no formal education, money or influence except an uncanny obsession with the idea of becoming a sailor on that dot of a ship which he had seen inching along on the horizon through our window years ago. And now he was actually going to Panama! I wished him well from the bottom of my heart when he took his leave of me. I did not see him again for a couple of years. Then he suddenly made his appearance again. He was loaded with a bag full of trinkets and gadgets, cartons of duty-free cigarettes, whisky and perfume—all gifts for us! He stood nearly six feet tall and flashed his famous smile, now framed in dark, luxuriant whiskers. From the moment he walked in he talked ceaselessly about the places he had visited and the experiences he had had on the high seas. He spoke excitedly for several hours. But I was not able to chart the course of his voyage precisely since his pronunciation of foreign names and places still had the characteristic Tamil twang. Even such common words as New York, Puerto Rico or San Francisco needed some decoding before I could make them out. But it did not really matter; I became totally absorbed in the young man’s sheer joy and his refreshing disregard for details—he had journeyed halfway across the world but all he could speak of was the sea. Wherever there was time to go ashore at ports of call he had been carefully conducted on shore and brought back to the ship safely by experienced mates. This seemed to have been his routine.

Even such outings sometimes, I could gather, turned out to be risky. He told me that once some Burmese brigands, attracted by the fountain pens, watches and cigarette lighters he and his friends brandished, attacked them with evil-looking machetes. But Ramaswami and his friends were more than a match for the marauders; they ran for their lives and took to the rice-fields. I enjoyed listening to his stories for they were ungarnished, unfilled, having the freshness of a child’s observation. But I knew his own feeling was that his style of narration lacked elegance and failed to convey to a learned person like myself the full force of the spirit of adventure, danger and suspense that his stories contained. So he leaned heavily on unbridled exaggeration which he somehow felt made up for his shortcomings as a narrator. Curiously, nearly all his experiences seemed to be full of villains, violence and action, though he himself was extremely benign, law-abiding and gentle. Somehow he seemed accident-prone. Once a boat capsized in the sea near the Gateway; Ramaswami was one of the crew members to escape death. The propeller of the upturned boat kept rotating, churning the water and sucking the drowning men towards its deadly blades inexorably. Some were sliced up like salami. Luckily, when Ramaswami’s turn came, lengths of floating ropes and odds and ends wrapped round the propeller, bringing it to a stop. There were pictures of the survivors and a detailed report of the disaster in the morning papers. And there was another accident when a boiler burst. Again Ramaswami escaped unhurt, but his mates who were closer to the boiler at that very moment were less fortunate. Thus from Hong Kong to the Straits of Hormuz, from the Cape of Good Hope to Valparaiso, the maritime highways were filled with death, danger and narrow escapes for our Ramaswami. I remember his account of a sea burial; a fight between a Puerto Rican and a Greek on a Greek ship somewhere on the Pacific Ocean provided the rare opportunity to him to witness the solemn ceremony. I do not remember any mild-mannered or normal characters that our friend had come across except perhaps for the person he came by in Hamburg who belonged to some divine order. He had come on board and distributed

chocolates and cheese to everyone, nodded his head many times with warmth and approval, smiled a lot and gone away. Then there was the account of an American. He was a millionaire, according to Ramaswami. He took him and his friends in his Cadillac and showed them all round New York till the early hours. He bought them gifts, fed them in posh restaurants, and said many nice things about India and Indians. He finally dropped them back at their lodgings and went his way. Of course, Ramaswami did not know who he was and why he had been so generous and kind. But when telling me about him he repeatedly expressed his deep gratitude as if somehow I would have the means to convey it to him. One day he came to announce that he was going back to his village in Tirunelveli to get married. He had made enough money and his sister insisted that it was about time he setded down. Naturally, it came as a great surprise to us. I, too, thought it would be nice for him to give up the sea and settle down. We sent him off with our good wishes and blessings, feeling a little sad that we might not see him again. But in six months he was back, grinning as brightly as ever and bearing a jar of pickles specially prepared by his wife. He left for Aden that night by air to join a tanker and sail for some distant point in the world. He said that he needed a little more money to setde down and therefore had accepted the commission. Thus Ramaswami took to the sea again and again. Sometimes he said he wanted funds to buy a house or a piece of farmland, sometimes he needed to repair his house or to dig a well. Meanwhile, his family grew. Now the need to clothe, educate and meet the demands of his children required Ramaswami’s absence at sea for months on end. However, his family—four daughters and two sons—lived in style. They wore imported watches and rode about on bicycles. His wife wore Japanese nylon saris and gold jewellery. His house boasted electric lights, fans and sofa sets. Ramaswami was very proud of his family. He told me his children were the cynosure of the whole village. But the poor fellow could hardly be with them. His status among his fellow men as a solvent individual constantly attracted appeals for loans to carry on a litigation, to preside over a marriage,

or to clear a debt. Listening to him about his commitments, his problems with his land and so on I could not imagine he would ever free himself from the sea to settle on land. Perhaps he did not even want to. Unfolding the paper casually one morning, I could hardly believe what I read in bold print. A cargo ship, London Valour, had broken into two in the Mediterranean and had sunk. Among those who perished were a number of Indians. Their names were given; S. Ramaswami was one of them. The news had a crippling effect on us. We were in agony for days, not knowing what to do. To our horror we discovered we had no clue to his home address. Our servants were all new and had no knowledge of Ramaswami. My desperate enquiries at marine offices in Ballard Pier only confirmed that Ramaswami was one of the victims of the London Valour. A gratuitous bit of information was also volunteered to me—that the captain of the ship had illegally overloaded the ship. As time went by we reconciled ourselves to the loss. Attempts to reach his people in the village and communicate with them seemed futile. Later that year my wife and I went abroad. On our way back from the USA we stopped over at Amsterdam and decided to travel by train and see a few other parts of Europe. We went as far down as Sevillia in Spain. From there on we worked our homeward stretch by Tee Catalina which took us through the French and Italian Riviera. The Mediterranean to our right accompanied us all the way. The sight of the sea immediately brought to our minds the thought of Ramaswami. The boy had been drowned somewhere out there in that turquoise-blue sheet sparkling under the sun, skirted by waves of silver filigree. The train moved on at a steady speed, stopping briefly at various picturesque little stations. We watched the panorama of tiny villages, farms and forests from the window on one side; from the other we could see the sea, castles, cliffs and opulent villas. Our minds were passive and we took in the scene in a half-sleepy state, lulled by the rhythmic jolting of the train. We had left behind Marseilles, Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Monaco and were fast approaching Italian territory.

Here I would like to leave the main story and depart a bit to describe certain small events that followed. They were a set of coincidences that occurred in rapid succession, making us believe that we were made to share, suddenly, some strange psychic experience. If this story had been a piece of mere fiction then what follows would have thrown doubts on the capability of the fiction writer to create a convincing situation. Only reality can afford to be clumsy in construction and incredible in content. This, as I said, is a true story. A young fellow who had all along been sitting opposite us, quietly reading a magazine, occasionally peeling an orange and eating it, or munching a sandwich, or broodingly looking out of the window and contemplating the landscape, suddenly bestirred himself, leaned forward and informed us that soon we would be reaching Genoa. Then he said, pointing to the sea, that the cargo ship, London Valour, had sunk somewhere out there. We were taken aback. That was precisely what we had on our minds. The young man added that he was one of the survivors of the disaster. He was a Greek and like Ramaswami had enrolled himself as a sailor on the London Valour. Finally he took out the magazine he was reading so intently. It was Paris Match and ran a feature story about the London Valour. He showed us pictures of the broken ship, of dead bodies lined up wrapped in white shrouds, of divers looking for more, of shocked survivors huddled together and so on. It was hard to believe that what was happening was just an ordinary everyday coincidence. Why, after such a long time, was the whole tragedy of Ramaswami being recreated for us in these vivid pictures, and why this firsthand account of the tragedy from this Greek sailor? Why did he not find a seat somewhere away from us—there were so many down the aisle. And, above all, why should all this have happened just a few minutes before our arriving at Genoa? Everything seemed to acquire a deadly meaning and a purpose. We were so overwhelmed by now that we jumped off the train when it halted at Genoa. We told ourselves that we owed it to Ramaswami to visit the place where he had died. It was the least we could do for a boy who was almost a son of the family.

It was quite late when we alighted at Genoa. It would be difficult to get a hotel room, the reservation clerk said as he dialled a number. Finally he found one and gave us the address. The taxi driver said it was quite far away and drove mostly in the dark; Genoa had gone to bed. The driver said it was a good hotel where we were booked and it was close to the sea. Then he said, ‘You can see the sunk ship from the hotel.’ And sure enough that was the first thing we saw through the window in the morning. The London Valour was buried in the sea vertically, its prow sticking up against the red glow of the dawn. We were very moved by the whole scene, though we were also happy in a way that we were right on the spot where poor Ramaswami had lost his life, to pay our homage to his memory and give comfort to his departed soul. Later, we went nearer the sea for a better view of the sunk ship. There I nicked up a black pebble as a token of our sentimental journey to Genoa and as a miniature monument to Ramaswami. Finally, we returned to Bombay from Rome at an unearthly hour. We were travel-worn, fatigued and jet-lagged. There was a hint of red on the eastern horizon. But by the time we were through the formalities of Immigration and Customs the glare of the sun was hurting our sleepless eyes. Reaching home I found the bed irresistible. I changed quickly and went off to sleep. When I woke up it was dark outside. I had slumbered through the entire day. After a bath I felt extremely fresh and relaxed. I gathered all the mail and magazines accumulated over the months and made myself comfortable in the living room under a mellow lamp with a drink of premium brand, magnum size, duty-free Scotch and soda. My wife was pottering around in another room rearranging the neglected home, making pleasant household noises. The air was charged with the smell of spices which we had missed for so long. On the whole there was peace on earth; I was wrapped in the most soothing tranquillity. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I heard one of the servants attend to it. A few moments later I heard footsteps entering and suddenly I saw in the twilight of the hall a dark tall figure with a familiar grin standing with arms folded in

salutation. I was shocked and screamed out for my wife and at the same time asked, ‘Ramaswami! Aren’t you dead?’ He just stood there flashing his smile. ‘But it was in all the papers … Ramaswami,’ I shouted, almost accusing him of contradicting the news item! ‘I was offloaded in Calcutta at the last minute,’ Ramaswami said, smiling. ‘The sandwich I ate in the mess was bad and I took ill. So were a few others who were to have gone by air to join the London Valour. The chap who died was another S. Ramaswami,’ he explained. When we had calmed down we explained to him all that had happened since we read the news of the disaster and told him of our subsequent visit to Genoa thinking he was dead. Ramaswami was immensely moved by our concern and the trouble we had taken over him. He said, his voice thick with emotion: ‘I am fortunate in having people like you who care for me so much. God has been truly kind to me in giving me an opportunity to know how much affection you people have for me—even if you think I’m dead!’ Dharmaraj wound up. There could be no better end, Ganesh thought, to his ‘Servants of India’ chronicle.

PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2000 Published in Penguin Books 2002 Copyright © R.K. Laxman 2000 Cover and inside illustration by R. K. Laxman All rights reserved ISBN: 978-01-4100-421-1 This digital edition published in 2013. e-ISBN: 978-93-5118-108-8 This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book.