The pretty young thing walked towards me with a smile, gracefully swinging her hip, and bowed. She 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, who sat in a high chair. “She eez survant. Not our class. No need for good morning, bad morning.”
“Civil servant? That is great,” I said, nursing the warm cup with both hands.
Mrs. Chawla looked confused.
I looked at the girl with feigned respect and a bow. “What are you, Madam, City Magistrate, District Collector, cabinet secretary, or some Commissioner?”
“Are you Mad, Menon Sa’ab? She is our house Survant. Does she look like a collector?”
“Garbage collector,” interjected Mr. Chawla from his near-obscure corner in a rare attempt at humour.
‘Sorry, but I only know of one kind of servants 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, grimacing in a show of contempt. “Military dhobi,” she sniggered.
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-dhobi, you know, only a washerman.”
“Madam Chawla, Anna Hazare who handed the prime ministry to Mr. Modi on a platter by threatening to fast until death was a sepoy-driver in the Army. 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 lahndrywala, and only a sepoy. Not Anna Hazare or anything like that.”
“You say dhobis, the laundry-walas are not powerful. Then who got Sita Mata shunted out into a deep jungle when she was pregnant?”
Mrs. Chawla looked taken aback, severely aggrieved. “Who? Who shunted out Sita Mataji?”
Mr. Chawla, whose quiet nature, I knew, was because he was a harried husband, took on an incarnation from priestly solemnity to the menace of a butcher. 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 Hindutva feelings, I’ll wring your neck. What did you mean Sita Mataji was shunted out? How did you dare utter such insulting words on our goddess?”
“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, give her a public chastity test by fire, bring her home, and exile her, pregnant or not, into the deepest jungle.”
He ignored Mrs. Chawla’s angry stare.
“But you never dare to say Sita-ji was shunted out and hurt my sensitivity. I could sue you for a million for outraging my religious feelings, Section 197 of our sacred Niyam Samhita – the most sanctified penal code ever compiled anywhere in the world. 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 even sue him for saying silly Supreme Court. Who knows, that might also hurt his religious feelings.
I looked at Mrs. Chawla. 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.
Acknowledgement: The image of a sweet young lady in this blog is a creation of ChatGPT. Thanks, OpenAI
