A True Story (warning: extreme anger taints every word)
The new guy wasn’t ever meant to be permanent. He’d been recommended by our real servant: the man who’d worked at our house since he’d been a runt of 15. His name, roughly translated, meant Benevolent Flower. Didn’t suit him one bit, despite his high voice and his skinny frame. He was deceptively tough, clever in the way he picked up tricks and skills and even mannerisms.
He was a gifted servant, BF, the sort who seems naturally inclined. He was proactive: didn’t need telling more than once. He’d drive at the right speed, adjust the volume just so, take criticism with an equable grin… he was a gifted servant.
But his world was in turmoil now, his home invaded and overrun by militants and military alike. He’d been desperate at the end: he needed to get back. His family awaited him, wife and son, and they were utterly, quietly helpless without him.
“But what about your father? Isn’t he there? Tell him to get them back with him!”
He’d shaken his head.
“He’s asking for 50,000.”
I was outraged. What sort of callous man would charge his kin money in exchange for safety? BF didn’t seem surprised or angry. He was stoic about it.
“He won’t do it. I need to go and get them.”
I knew I couldn’t stop him. I was fearful for him, genuinely so. It was so dangerous up there these days. Lawlessness, gratuitous violence, mad Taliban and grim soldiers embroiled in a struggle for life and death; in fighting their own brothers. The mere prospect of BF, trying to shepherd his burqa-clad wife and his ailing child to sanctuary seemed fraught with peril and worse, the certainty of failure.
Besides, my carefully ordered life would crumble into chaos without him.
“They’ll kill you if they catch you, you know.” I didn’t need to specify which ‘they’; the insurgents and the army were equally likely to kill him (savage beheading vs. synchronized firing-by-death-squad being the only difference). Where one group would take his lack of facial hair as grounds enough, the other had no genuine way of separating Taliban from hapless citizen.
How could they, when everyone looked so bloody alike?
BF shrugged at my warning. Fatalism is the benefit you reap when you’re faithful, after all.
“What about your phone?”
He shook his head. No cell phones allowed. All signals had been blocked up there; electricity was sporadic and for the first time, I felt that perhaps the dire predictions were right: we were circling back round to the Dark Ages.
BF seemed to sense my anxiety, and he tried calming me down a bit.
“Don’t worry, bibi. I know the backroads like no one else. That is my home.”
I nodded. “Will you bring them back?”
He shrugged.
“You should. They’ll be safe here. And your son can go to a proper school, study English…”
He shook his head, adamantly. I’d tried and failed there before. He wouldn’t countenance the thought of his offspring going to an English school. No matter how much I explained the benefits to him, he wouldn’t budge. I’d even tried the we-don’t-have-kids-let-us-take-care-of-your-kid’s-education card without success.
His children would be traditional. And many. He didn’t care for modern notions at all, though he didn’t seem to begrudge us our lifestyles either.
Eventually, he left. He brought along a young man, introducing him as his ‘cousin’. Since we knew the tendency to refer to all and sundry as ‘cousins’, we were skeptical.
The boy himself seemed decent enough. A bit…rough in terms of speech and manners, but polite overall. He had possible potential. We accepted him as BF’s substitute.
Right away we realized the NG (new guy) didn’t possess an ounce of the common sense or the desire to learn his predecessor had. Where BF had performed his tasks with a generous finesse, mixing drinks and instructing the other staff with the same smiling ease, NG seemed simply incapable. He mumbled when spoken to. His ‘work’ was confined to opening the gate early morning, closing it after us, then repeating the same every evening. Oh, yes. He’d also wash the cars-when he remembered to.
As for the rest, there was a gigantic, irritating gap. We became accustomed to picking up after ourselves: the entire time we couldn’t wait to resume our former indolence the instant BF returned.
NG was also a bit sullen. He yelled when spoken to, and despite my husband’s insistence that he didn’t ‘know better’, I had a sick little inkling that he did. That he was deliberately rude and lazy; that he intended to get away with whatever he could.
I tried explaining a few basics to him once. I compared his situation (wake up, open/shut gate, lie down and watch cable TV in room till evening, open/shut gate, eat and sleep) to mine, in a way he could comprehend. NG, I said. I have been employed by someone, just like you have. I go there at 9, and I stay there all day. I do everything required of me and if I don’t, well, I get penalized. Similarly, if I take too many days off, I will eventually get my salary deducted.
So, you, NG, should keep the same idea in your mind. We all have a responsibility toward our work, after all.
He didn’t give any sign of having understood or even heard me. It was only later that I realized the reason: I was a lowly woman, nothing more than chattel. For a Pathan man (of his nature), taking orders from a woman was inconceivable, even hilarious.
Or enraging.
It went on that way for months. We settled into a new routine, forever conscious of its desired temporariness. We were waiting.
One night, an incident occurred. It was late, the man and I’d been drinking and felt like munching on something frivolous and sweet.
“There’s watermelon in the fridge, I’ll get it,” he said. I lolled on the sofa, anticipating the sweet fruit-juice lazily.
He returned empty handed, and angry.
“NG took it.”
I sat up.
“All?” I asked stupidly.
He nodded, looking annoyed and also, surprised.
“I already divided the damned thing in 2, gave him half. And he calmly takes the rest from our fridge, knowing we hadn’t even tried it.”
I felt mad. Also, uneasy. We weren’t used to such events. BF had never taken anything without asking, or informing us. We gave our staff three square meals daily (the same food we had), and a lot more besides in the way of fruit, dessert…they weren’t starving, nor were they deprived or reduced to eating shit while we dined like royalty.
This act was disturbing, viewed in the light of such facts.
“Did you tell him he can’t just pick stuff up without telling us, at least?”
He looked like I felt.
“I did, yeah.”
The next day, my man came home from work to find: 1 giant watermelon perched precariously on the kitchen counter, and 1 defiant Pathan hovering over it.
“What’s this?” the question was calm.
“You scolded me for eating fruit. I’m replacing it.”
This wasn’t declared meekly, or even calmly. There was a distinct, mutinous flavor to the words-a threat, even.
To his (enormous) credit, the man didn’t lose his shit. No, he just asked NG a simple question.
“Did I give you half of that fruit already, or not?”
NG was forced to nod.
“So, why did you think I meant you to have it all? Didn’t you realize that maybe, just maybe, my wife and I might like to eat the fruit I bought?”
Nothing.
“And now, you’re going to feed me? Is that it?”
This question too, was delivered with a restrained tone.
NG didn’t seem to have a retort here either.
“I don’t want it. And another thing: you’ve been extremely rude, and without reason just now.”
So saying, the man left the kitchen.
NG snatched up the offending fruit, and hurled it somewhere outside the house.
A week later, we were robbed. Jewelry, licensed weapon, watch, cameras, all gone. And NG fled into the night, never to be heard from again.
We did what we could, impotently and furiously. The cops sighed, and came clean when we filed a report. Look, they told us. We’ve murders and kidnappings and bomb threats to look into. A robbery(and one where you weren’t even roughed up) just doesn’t cut it these days.
So we sighed and we evaded the cops’ attempts (veiled and blatant) to extract bribe money from us and we went back home. Changed the locks and sat around depressed and helpless and just so bloody, fucking furious. At BF, for leaving us with a thief-as-servant. At NG, for repaying our kindness and leniency and generousity so coldly and cleverly. At the cops for their barefaced ineptitude and their shameless efforts to rob us a bit more.
But what does it all matter anyway? The stuff’s gone. The gun’s gone, so we feel even more exposed and vulnerable in this chaotic city, where people get murdered and mugged (in any order) every single day. And to top it, there’s floods and poverty and Impending Doom (a prophecy that’s existed as long as this bloody country has). Everywhere I turn lately, people are holding dire discussions, throwing around ominous predictions in what seems to have become a Who-Can-Be-More-Morbid contest. “They’ll come into our homes!” one said. ‘They’ being the masses, of course (what else, when you’re the bourgeoisie contingent?). A seething, unwashed Hydra pulsing with bloody-thirsty hatred and base greed that can scale walls, slay innocents, plunder and burn all in its path: this monster we call The People.
“We should all flee, move to America/Europe/insert whichever ‘white’ nation you like.” This is another refrain, one I heard till my ears bled post-robbery-weekend. Because naturally, how else can we all be saved? Let’s all abandon our homes and our roots, our lives and friends and careers, and scramble desperately to The West where we can gain refuge. Oh, but remember: don’t exhibit any overt signs of your faith, not these days. Don’t want to get burnt, do you?
I actually tried this piece of sarcasm, only to be told:
“Oh, that’s for the fundo types! We’re not that way, we’re modern!” (Excuse me while I cut my own ears off at this display of laughable, shallow attempt at disowning your identity!)
And,
“What do you care? You’re always claiming to be an aethist!” (Because believing something different means I won’t give a flying fuck about the rest of my fellow Pakis, apparently).
Oh! The absolute gem still needs sharing:
“See? This is all inevitable. There’s so much poverty now, people are desperate! What do you expect from them, dear?”
This last bit of sanctimonious ‘comfort’ was delivered to me just recently and to this, I have a reply.
NG wasn’t starving, or desperate. He didn’t have a hungry family to feed. He wasn’t overworked and burnt out and depressed. He earned more money than others who slave day and night to make ends meet. He lay around all day while the man and I worked. He watched telly, and he smoked pot. And he ate whatever the bloody hell we did, day after day.
So, no. It wasn’t down to the country’s state, or natural calamities, or human fragility.
NG was a grabby, cold-hearted, opportunistic, lazy arsehole. He’s probably giddy right now, chucking cash around that he earned from STEALING MY STUFF.
And the worst bit, more than the fear and the shock and the disappointment and the loss is just this: the bastard tricked us. Successfully.