When the pretty young thing bowed and then placed a tray of steaming coffee cups and biscuits on the small table, I half-raised my posterior and said Good Morning.
“No no no,” screamed Mrs. Chawla. ‘”She eez survant . Not our class. No need for good morning, bad morning.”
“Civil servant? That is good,” I said, nursing the warm cup with both hands.
Mrs. Chawla looked confused.
I looked at the girl with feigned interest. “What are you, Madam, City Magistrate, Collector , cabinet secretary or some Commissioner?”
“Are you stupid, Menon sa’ab? She is our house servant. Does she look like a collector?”
“Garbage collector,” interjected Mr. Chawla in a rare attempt at humour.
‘Sorry, but I only know of one kind of servant in our country. Civil servants. They are, like, magistrates, Collectors and cabinet secretaries.”
The young woman bounced on her toes. “Ayyam civil servant. My father is military servant.”
Mrs. Chawla leaned forward in her seat and tittered. “Military dhobi.”
I pretended to be amazed. “Lucky girl. Dhobis are the most powerful people whether in the military or civil,”
“Not powerful-coverful,” spat Mrs. Chawla in Punjabi-style disgust. ”Her father is only a sepoy. Sepoy-washer-maan.”
“Madam Chawla, Anna Hazare who handed the prime ministry to Mr. Modi on a platter by threatening fast was once a sepoy. Sepoys are powerful even after retirement.”
“Nunsense,” said Mrs. Chawla, shaking her chin left and right like a Bharatnatyam dancer. “This woman is a survant, her father is a dhobi, a lahn-drywala, and only a sepoy. Not Anna Hazare or something like that.”
“You say dhobis, the lahn-drywalas are not powerful . Then who got Sita Mata shunted out into a deep jungle when she was pregnant?”
Mrs. Chawla looked taken aback, even aggrieved. “Who? Who shunted out Sita Mataji?”
Mr. Chawla, whose quiet nature, I knew, was because he was a harried husband, took on a new incarnation like Lord Krishna in Kurukshetra when he lost in a bargain for free land with the Kuru clan. He glowered at me. His nasal ports flared and steamed, his eyes widened and shone like a jackal’s in the dark. His body tremored.
“Mr. Menon, I am a man of peace, which is why my party doesn’t give me an election ticket. But if you hurt my Hindu feelings, I’ll wring your neck. What did you mean Sita Mataji was shunted out? How did you dare utter such insulting words on goddess Sita?”
“All right,” I said with a deep bow. “I confess I used the wrong phrase. I meant she was exiled by Lord Ram.”.
Chawla looked smaller when he no longer bristled.
“Exiled is OK. It’s respectful enough. It doesn’t hurt my religious feelings. Even our Veer Savarkar was exiled. Exiling our ladies is in our glorious culture because Lord Ram set an example for all of us. If someone takes away your wife, you go and bring her back, and then exile her, pregnant or not, into the deepest jungle, . But you never daresay shunted out and hurt my feelings. I could sue you for a million. You will cool your heels in some shit-oozing jail till the silly Supreme Court gets you out.”
I nodded. He was on the dot. I can’t sue him for saying silly Supreme Court. Who knows, that might also hurt his religious feelings.
I looked at Mrs. Chawla. Evidently, her husband’s cultural ideology and legal luminosity had flown over her head. She sat beaming, smug in the thought that somehow the servant woman was put in place.
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