by R K Laxman
‘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 i
t 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.