Ramaswamy

D. Ranga Rao

“Where has Ramaswamy gone? It is time for my coffee,” said I stretching myself on the lawn under the neem tree. It was Saturday and I had come home early.

“He went out after lunch. He hasn’t returned yet. He should have been back by now. I’ll get your coffee in a minute” answered my wife as she went in.

Ramaswamy was our cook and major domo. He had come to us with a letter of introduction from my father-in-law. He has bowed with a studied grace as he handed me the letter ceremonially like an ambassador presenting his credentials to the Head of a State. He was tall and well-built. He stood erect and motionless like a statue. His jet-black hair was neatly plastered back and he sported a silver-white handle-bar moustache. He had a full face, plump cheeks, a blunt nose, dreamy eyes with a Macmillanian slant and two small spendages on either side of his head for ears. His complexion was as black as his hair and had an oily sheen. There were three white bars of sacred ash above his bushy eyebrows on his forehead. He dressed himself in a spotless white tunic with shining brass buttons and well pressed trousers. There was an expression of supreme disdain and haughty pride on his face. He seemed to believe that words were not necessary for a man of action. He answered my few questions with deep-throated grunts, bowing at each grunt. He was perhaps in his late forties, may be in early fifties. I thought that such a striking man of his stature and build belonged to the battle-field or the ring but not to the kitchen.

“Your father has sent this man to cook for us and keep the house”, I said to my wife as she came into the drawing room.

“Oh! It is nice of him” she replied vaguely, taken aback at the apparition of Ramaswamy.

“Your father writes that this man has seen service in the bungalows of District Collectors and Judges and that he is dependable”.

At these words Ramaswamy straightened himself up further, puffed up his chest like a prize fighter and bowed to my wife with the first faint hint of a smile on his dark lips.

“Dad, this man’s face has a resemblance to Brutus”, whispered my twelve year old son from behind my chair and I silenced him with a hiss.

Brutus was our dog, big and sluggish with a sad and pensive expression in his eyes, which slanted downwards. Brutus had shuffled uneasily and grunted deeply at the arrival of Ramaswamy. And the visitor answered it with a deeper grunt of disapproval at bad manners. Brutus had given up another attempt at showing his displeasure at the intrusion by a stranger but curled himself up into a huge ball at my feet as though badly beaten in an unequal battle.

Early next morning I was awakened by the silver tinkles of a bell. As I walked towards the kitchen I saw Ramaswamy standing in his white bath towel before half a dozen deities, male and female, benevolent and malevolent ranged on the wall, his body shining as ebony; his right hand moving round and round with burning camphor in a brass tray while his left hand kept ringing the bell. Cloudy curling whiffs of fragrance rose from the incense burners. My children were the interested and delighted spectators of this ritual which was new to them. Brutus too was at the door step standing reverentially with a quizzical look. Ramaswamy had smeared sacred ash on his forehead, arms, chest and belly in three cross bars and the kids were amused at the sight. They began to giggle as Ramaswamy gargled deeply and sonorously but undistinguishably the holy hymns in his throat, in a language not familiar to them.

At breakfast time he had put on his ‘official’ uniform but the sacred ash bars were still there on his forehead. He served first three bits of ‘prasadam’ to all of us and threw a piece to Brutus. This ritual he kept up everyday.

My wife appreciated the religious fervour and the calculated efficiency of Ramaswamy and said half jokingly and half seriously that I possessed neither virtues which was true indeed.

Ramaswamy was thorough in his work and kept everything neat and tidy. He would silently walk about in his white canvas shoes. His presence was felt only by his grunts. He had different grunts to suit different occasions-grunts to suggest approval, disapproval, reprimands, appreciation and the like. His ceremonial bowing while handing coffee cups would bowl his bitterest enemy over. He had a peculiar habit of receding into the back-ground noiselessly like a ghost. I could not learn from him details about him, details like his place of birth, parentage, previous stations of service etc., by engaging him in conversation. He hid his past behind a sphinx-like immobility of expression, behind an impenetrable armour plate of silence. A lamp post on the roadside would speak eloquently when approached.

It took quite some time for us all to adjust ourselves to his presence and his weird ways. But he was not a bad cook. Though we discovered that he suffered from short-sight which sometimes created tickling situations that amused my children, things were going right. What astonished us most was that Brutus took to this man with a friendliness that was not his his nature and in no time he was frolicking and gamboling about in an ecstasy. There was seen a happy glint in his eyes, which before the arrival of Ramaswamy, bore all the sadness of the world.

During the first week-end after the arrival of Ramaswamy, my son came running to me excited one day.

“Dad”, he said, “Ramaswamy can speak the language of dogs. I’ve seen him and heard him talking to Brutus”.

“Yes, Daddy,” piped in my little daughter. “Brutus nodded his head and smiled when Ramaswamy spoke to him.”

“Brutus is a strange name for a dog, however philosophical. Now that he is no longer a sad thinker, let us change his name”, said my wife as she joined our group. At a distance I could see Brutus happily leaping high at a fly.

We all felt jolly and cheerful as never before.

As days rolled by, Ramaswamy grew more and more authoritative and less and less communicative. His grunts grew shorter and deeper. He had taken so complete a command of the management with such haughtiness of spirit that my wife was the first to feel disappointed and depressed. My children began to complain that Ramaswamy was not treating them properly for he was imposing himself upon them like a tyrant. They began to give him nick-names and called him ‘Black Knight’, ‘Black Diamond’ and others which they could think of. I on my part was growing tired of his silences. He would take his sweet time in setting the table at breakfast or dinner and before long I found myself shouting at him in impatience asking him to hurry up for God’s sake. My wife had every cause to disapprove of him, as he started to ignore her and do things according to his wishes. The only member of the house-hold that seemed to be blissfully happy was Brutus.

At the beginning of the third week my wife approached me, fretting and fuming and told me that the provisions had all been used up (God knows how, she said) earlier than they should be. For according to her calculation they should have lasted longer. She had also found items of cutlery and crockery and stainless steel things dwindling in number. Having finished her account of her owes, she looked at me with accusing eyes as though I was responsible for the shape things had taken, while forgetting that it was her father who was about to bring ruin down upon us by sending this man to us.

I had myself discovered that the piles of newspapers and magazines were missing in my room but had not given thought to it until my wife’s tell-tale complaint. As I sat looking up at the ceiling wondering what could be wrong, my son said that the conversation bouts between Ramaswamy and Brutus were growing less frequent and shorter while my little daughter said with a tear in her eye that Brutus was thinning and falling back into his original moods of sulkiness. Ramaswamy evidently was not paying attention to Brutus any more.

As I lay that afternoon on the lawn under the neem tree wondering why Ramaswamy had not returned, my wife brought the coffee pots.

“Ramaswamy”, she spoke dreamily, “has been behaving queer for some days. Did you observe that the bars of sacred ash on his forehead disappeared a few days back? Yesterday as he served us food, I felt a lingering perfume about him.”

As I sipped my steaming coffee, I forgot all about Ramaswamy but began to marvel how keen of sight and smell women were and looked at her with eyes full of appreciation born out of utter inability on my part to understand the mind of a woman.

“You know what?” exclaimed my wife, startling me out of my musings on woman-kind, “Ramaswamy is in love!”

It was as though a sudden flash of lightning had driven away all darkness. The key for the mystery was found. Things began to answer themselves and a clear picture began to emerge. Under the influence of the shafts of Cupid, Ramaswamy was selling things to buy presents for his sweet-heart!

“There is no knowing to what lengths he would go and bring shame on our heads,” said my wife, anxiety playing on her face.

“Yes, we must wait and see” I replied stupidly.

“I know where he goes in the afternoons on Sundays” said my little daughter. He spends his afternoons in uncle Subrahmanya Iyer’s house.

Subrahmanya Iyer, a lawyer, lived a few blocks away with his six unmarried daughters.

“I have also seen him there. I’ll go now on my bike and find out what he’s doing” said my son offering his services to unravel the mystery and play the spy. “Don’t. Don’t be silly. You are doing nothing of the sort,” I said to him harshly. “As soon as he returns, I’ll tell him that he is fired”.

“Will you?” enquired my wife with relief in her voice, her eyes brightening up at my wise decision.

“Yes dear, as soon as he returns”.

“Dad, Ramaswamy smears his face with Fair and Lovely cream and uses Pond’s powder in the kitchen a number of times” said my daughter.

Ramaswamy who left that Saturday afternoon having received his pay-packet did not return at all.

My wife has been doing all the cooking with an expertness never known before and all of us are happy except Brutus who has become moody and irritable after Ramaswamy’s mysterious departure.

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