Bhaiyyan

Standing in his garden, Satish looked at the servant’s quarter from a distance. It was a Monday night. His daughter, Mini, was inside the quarter, as every Monday she was invited to dinner by Bhaiyyan, his full time help at his Kirana store. Before she left for the dinner, Satish had asked Mini to go out with him to the chaat shop but Mini refused saying she would get late for the dinner. 

He walked towards the quarter; he wanted to figure out what was it that they ate or what did they talk about that made Mini so fond of those Monday dinner invitations. The main door of the quarter was left open ajar. It surprised him that his wife, Rama, who was so careful and over protective when it came to Mini, was not keeping an eye on them. She was away from the quarter, sitting inside the house, and digesting her dinner with a cup of ginger tea.

When he walked inside the quarter, he found them sitting on the floor, in the kitchen and eating with their hands. Bhaiyyan was saying something and Mini was laughing, waiting to put the next morsel in her mouth. 

“Sahab, please come. Have dinner.”

“No, no. You guys eat, I have already had dinner. I just wanted to check when will Mini be done. Her mother was asking. But seems like it is going to take some time.”, Satish said looking at Mini who was still giggling. 

While putting another morsel in her mouth, Mini rejected the idea of going home.

“I just came. I am going to be here for a while. I have not even eaten yet.”

He assured him that she could stay longer and finish her dinner properly. 

Satish looked at the aluminium plate in which Mini was eating. Her plate was filled with steamed rice and a potato curry was spread over the rice; a half peeled raw onion was kept on the side. Satish remembered the day when Mini did not eat the fried rice that Rama made at home as it had onion. He had never seen her take a piece of chapati with her hand, and either Rama or he himself used to break the chapati into pieces for her. Here she was eating mouthfuls of rice with her hand. He thought he would go home and tell Rama about it. He was sure she would never believe him.

They continued eating, laughing and Mini was doing most of the talking. Bhaiyyan spoke less and kept smiling. 

Satish thought it would be best if he just left them at their dinner and went home. It was a long day for him and his mind was very tired from all the contemplation he had been doing since yesterday.

He was returning to the shop after his lunch yesterday, when he saw someone leaving. He saw Bhaiyyan keeping some money in the right pocket of his white kurta. Satish thought that Bhaiyyan might have put it by mistake and he would put it back in the drawer, so he stood there for five minutes and waited. But Bhaiyyan didn't keep the money in the drawer. Satish was shocked. 

He had noticed some mismatch in the accounts and the supplies at the middle of the month, but he was not sure as it had never happened before. After seeing this, he wanted to check the accounts once more to be sure. 

He rechecked the sales last night and tallied them against the sales numbers as per the supply and availability records. There was a mismatch of five thousand rupees. 

He was very sceptical now; he didn't want to believe what seemed to be true. He didn’t tell anybody and decided that he would observe for a few more days before making up his mind. 

Every day Satish went home for lunch and Bhaiyyan was responsible for the shop in his absence. He spent almost half an hour at lunch and it took him another ten minutes to commute back to the shop. So, overall, he was away for approximately an hour from the shop. 

Next day onwards, Satish started finishing his lunch in fifteen minutes. He would walk back to the shop, and when he would be close enough, he stood on the side and observed Bhaiyyan. Every time a customer left, Bhaiyyan kept the money in his kurta and never kept it in the drawer. When it had been about an hour since he left for lunch, Satish would go inside the shop and ask him if there were any sales. Bhaiyyan promptly said no, and sometimes he showed a bill of some small amount. Then he cribbed about how down the market was and it would pick up after the summers. 

Bhaiyyan had been working for him for almost five years now. Satish had taken him in when he had come to find a job in Meerut. Bhaiyyan had no work in his home town, a small village near Patna, and he left his family behind to work and earn in Meerut, as many of his other friends had done. Satish kept him at his shop, explained the work to him and gave him his servant quarter to stay. He was paying him a good salary, and often Rama would even give him some food. They would invite him home for festivals and he would sit along with them for poojas and other rituals. Satish thought of him as a part of their family. 

Bhaiyyan also used to take Mini to school whenever she missed her school bus. On her holidays, she played with Bhaiyyan, rode around on his cycle, and would also go to the shop with him. 

Satish thought he would try one final thing before deciding.

One day when he came back for lunch, he straight away went to Bhaiyyan’s quarter and started searching it. Rama came to ask what he was doing and he sent her back to the house and assured that he would tell her later. He knew that Bhaiyyan used to send all his money home except keeping a very small amount for himself. He had food, a place to stay and there was nothing more he needed the money for. Satish searched the whole quarter but could not find anything. He thought maybe Bhaiyyan was carrying all the money everyday in his kurta. It did not seem possible though. Bhaiyyan would not take the risk of getting mugged. So there was no other place to keep the money apart from his quarter. He was confused and  hungry.

Satish thought of going back to the house and having lunch. The more he stayed away from the shop, the more he was loosing. He came out and found that it was raining. He had to go to the house from the quarter. He had seen Bhaiyyan’s umbrella inside so he went to take it. He opened the umbrella and suddenly money showered on him.

He got his last proof. Satish counted the money and it was a little more than five thousand. 

He went home and told Rama everything. 

Next day by the time Mini came back from school, Bhaiyyan had already left. Mini asked Satish about Bhaiyyan at lunch. He told her that his family needed him so he left. Satish consoled her as she cried, she said she could not even say good bye to him.