Master And Servant

Humor

Master
And

Servent

By B.R. Raksun

It’s been a late night and I am in night duty. How a police station in rural area will be, you know. There will be no facilities, even minimum. All the things we need here, we have to arrange by ourselves or just we have to get accustomed to available things. For a day or two for any visitor or cite seeing person is not a problem here, because they come here prepared for the difficulties.

I have been transferred newly to this new remote place. It’s from a city where I was really very comfortable. I don’t know, it may be a punishment or it’s really a necessity of my services here.

I am lonely, feeling bored. No job to do. Having a cup of tea available from the rural canteen run by a person strictly called a villager who has not visited any town in his life time and what he knows is only the village life, so you can guess how the tea will be here. What I eat here is equal to green grass that is delicious for cattle and the tea �" no better than hot water.

The constable with me is Johnson. He is young and sensible. He has no family, so he baths, eats and sleeps in the police station. He knows more ways and means than me to live in a place like this with better comfort.

“As you know, tea is very healthy! It keeps you warm and it makes you work happily in places like this! The canteen owner keeps a pot of tea on the burning coal all the night. Shall I ask him to bring two cups for you and me?” Johnson asked me with a total care for my health.

I know what Johnson is trying to say. He always thinks about making me comfortable with just the available facilities here. He alerts me when I take any wrong decisions. He shows a way out whenever I feel I am in a fix like situation. He is very intelligent and a simple companion to me in this remote place.

I have no sleep. It is raining outside. I am interested in reading which helped me live peacefully. I like simple people like Johnson. I smiled. It means I have accepted for what he said. He took a broken umbrella in the station and rushed to the canteen in the darkness like a running cat.

He took some dry bread for himself and few salt biscuits for me. He ordered tea for two and then he came back with the same vigor. I asked Johnson with a smile, “Why don’t you ask canteen owner to take a new telephone connection. If he needs some money we can give him and you don’t have to walk like a wild cat in this darkness when we need a tea in the midnight like this.”

Johnson smiled brightly and said sincerely, “it will be nice if we arrange for him a new telephone connection and tell him that it is our gift for his services of midnight tea to us”

I also smiled for his sincere effort of timely pun and maybe he really wants to do that favor to him. Just then, the telephone on the centre table is ringing. We both wondered.. As a matter of fact, nobody will call us in the day, then who cares to call us in this midnight? There is a possibility that it may be a wrong call. So we did not care to lift the phone..

The canteen man came and served tea and biscuits. Johnson’s bread also was promptly delivered. We are sipping the tea leisurely. I am looking at the rain. It is pouring cats and dogs. The novel ‘The old and the sea’ is on the table. I like this by Ernest Hemingway. I cannot read now. I am looking in to the pitch darkness outside the police station.

The telephone is ringing again. I looked Johnson as if saying that he check who he is. Johnson lifted phone. There is someone on the other side, speaking with authority.

I saw the wall clock. The time is half fast twelve. Who the hell at this time needed my services,
I am wondering with my thinking. Johnson is answering with several “yes sir! yes sir! yes sir!” answers with respect.

I have finished my tea. I took the receiver from Johnson’s hand. I found that someone who is talking from other side is in fully drunken state. He is little bit angry for the interruption in conversation as I took the receiver from Johnson. He asked me, ”who the hell are you?“

” I am the hell called the police officer here. May I know who the hell are you? Whoever you are, you have to know that this is not the time to tell your c**k and bull stories!” I said.

The man on other side is commanding, he said that he will go to Hyderabad early in the morning, so he wants to give a complaint now. His servant did a crime, so he wants to lodge a complaint against him. Then he said in a voice of authority that I must be obliged to take his complaint now and he alerted me giving important information, saying that entire police officers in the whole state know him very well and they give him respect, so his request cannot be tuned out by me.

I turned out his request saying that if he is going to Hyderabd in the morning, he can lodge his complaint in Hyderabad and if he likes to give his complain here, he has to come here tomorrow.

”It’s already midnight,  you can come tomorrow and lodge your complaint against your servant. Now shut up and put it off.”  There is full harshness in my tone which is not concealed to my ears.

”Okay. Okay. I give my complaint against my servant in your police station. The place of crime is this village, so I must give my complaint here, not in Hyderabad. I will come to your station with my servant! Just in half an hour” The man on the other side said quickly and the telephone is hanged with the same speed.

I am wondering who this midnight headache can be. I took the old man and sea from the tabletop and put it inside the draw. Johnson cleared the tea cups and other things as if some officer is about to come to see the police station for giving a report to the higher authorities.

I do not know if I ever will or even if I will ever want to speak with a man in that drunken state, it will be wasting the valuable time. There is no harm in imagining what will happen. I know he may be a rich man and he may be angry on me. He may try to get me transferred from here to any worst place. I don’t bother about all that. I am not better here. With all the factors, I asked him to simply shut up and cut the line because my temperament is not one to be disturbed by anything going to happen. I am harsh in my tone when I don’t like people with no decency and feel unnecessary pride.. Very few of my known people know about my temperament hidden in me and they don’t know that I can speak harsh like this. Johnson also comes in the category of that kind, so he is looking at me with some unbelief.

Just in half an hour, a costly car came and stopped before the police station. The driver is inside the car and two people came in. One is the master and the other is servant. Master is in good dress and there is a long bottle of foreign whisky in his right hand, half empty. It looks as if he is drinking and chatting with his servant happily. The servant is also holding a long bottle of the raw arrack which is half empty. The master is stout with eyes closing frequently and the servant is a bundle of bones with burning eyes. He looks like a very agreeable man with his plain face. Nobody can judge the face of the Master as it is clearly unreadable.

They both sat on a bench available in my station and put their bottles on my table. If anybody sees in this condition, they definitely think that I am trying a different cocktail mix. I see the master commanding with great influence. He said he has many spinning mills and fruit juice factories in the state. He has may sugar mills also. So his close friends call him sweet fruit. I am thinking why this sweet fruit came with whisky bottle to my station. I asked the same thing. The sweet fruit did not smile, simply he is narrating his story.

“I have come to this village few hours back to celebrate the annual function of our sugar mill here. I am Chakradhari, the owner. of the sugar mill Chakra Sugars. This is one of my servants called Bhoochakram working in my sugar factory,” the sweet fruit introduced himself and when he is speaking, the servant is staring the master’s face very carefully.

Chakradhari  means  Lord Vishnu who wears a weapon  called Chakra (wheel of force to be used to kill the demons) and Bhoochakram means a simple cracker which moves round  and round when fired on the ground in festival times and burnt away to ashes.

“I have finished my speech in the function and came back to my rest house. I am taking my whisky in a leisurely mood. Then this man came. He came with his bottle of raw arrack. There is my bottle, this costly whisky bottle on a teapoy in front of me. I have finished half of it and still another half I have to finish. Then he, my servant, poured four drops of his raw arrack in my costly whisky…” as the master has not finished his conversation, the servant has interrupted by saying, “ not four, just three drops, I agree.”

“Okay, may be only three drops… but it spoiled my drinking mood. I cannot drink this polluted whisky. I want him arrested on this crime!” Master is insisting as if his servant made a murder attempt on him.

“I object your honor! “ The Servant has pleaded as if he is in a court before a judge,“ It is my Master who has encouraged me to do This thing. So this is not a crime done by me, but a crime done by my Master. He should be arrested, not me. The crime is done by my Master.”

I see something like an amusing scene is happening before my.

“How can you say that? How your master has encouraged you to do that thing? How he can ask you to pour your arrack in your Master’s costly whisky bottle?” I enquired the servant.

“I will tell you my lord. In the end of meeting, my Master has said in his speech that we are all same. My Master can eat in our home and I can dine with my Master on his dining table. He lastly said that I can drink with him if I like to do so, he will not have any objection. My Master summed up saying that he is ready to drink with me (worker) together as he has no inhibitions. When he said all this in a open meet to all our workers, it is just equal enough saying personally. So I came to drink with my Master. I don’t like his costly brand of whisky made in a foreign country, maybe it is the best or maybe it is very special. So I like to have my country arrack and I wished my Master to drink with me, I mean, taste my whisky. So I have dropped just three drops of my arrack in his whisky, my lord! Is it a crime by me or a crime by my Master who has encouraged me to go to his place and drink with him?” The servant stopped and looked at me

I am silent. I did not answer. I simply try to hear what they are saying..

“How old are you?” Master asked the Servant with a wondering eye..

“Forty four,” Servant answered truthfully, and for the first time I keep silent myself and hearing  mutual conversation of the Master and Servant

“Are you forty four?  I am just forty three! But Bhoo, you listen to me �" you made a crime, it is true. I may speak rubbish in the meeting! Bhoo, you look innocent! Why you take everything I speak is true? I never speak truth, I speak any matters suitable for any situation! I am always so preoccupied with my business experience that I speak just rubbish… rubbish and rubbish, none else!” Master waved his hand as a political leader. His hand patted in the air as if there is a table and he is patting the table with his hand.

“I cannot waste my time on such matters like this.” I said firmly and asked the master to forget this because this is his folly to make someone from his servants come to him and try to feel drinking friendly with his master.

The master is clever. He did not plead much. He simply looked at me sharply and said, “nobody has declined my request till today. I forgive my servant, but now I don’t forget you.”

“I cannot forget you my lord! Thank you!” The servant said to me with tears in his eyes. He is moved really for my help, he thinks.

The master took his costly whisky bottle. The servant took his bottle of local arrack. The Master walked out with anger and servant followed him with pleasure. I heard the sound of the car started and the scene is so quick to see it’s end.

 Johnson looked at me as if he is asking me that what will happen. I smiled as if I am saying that it happens what it may has to, I am not worried. I did not feel unhappy for what has happened.

***

After few days of this incident, when I have completely forgot, I. have received a Registered Post from my department. It is a transfer order from my department. I have been transferred to my previous place where I have my family and children. I am so happy. This is not a punishment for any crime. This is an award in disguise for some unknown doing I did. Then I remembered the night when the master and servant came to me. This is a silly matter which helped me reach my family. The Master’s effort worked and I have been transferred. That’s it.

  Time is 3:30pm. I am relieved by 2,30pm. I am one hour late to leave for my new or my old place. Just then he came with a letter. He is newly posted officer here. He said he will take charge. I gave him charge and got releived and said good bye to my friend there. Johnson has tears in his eyes. I really understand how deeply he cares me. I am thinking I will be home in three or four hours as I sit in the bus, thinking about my little girl.

***

 

 

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Reviews

[Seema singh]

supar sir...aaj ke daur me hasi bahut kimti hai... aap muskurahat baant rahe hai... really really very nice...