Servants of India

by R K Laxman

  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 w
orth 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 enforce
d 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.