Cooking up life to perfection

Rajbir Deswal

HE was from a remote village in Nepal and said it took him three days to reach his village and his kin. He must have been 45 then. Bahadur, as we called him, did not speak much. He would cook, serve well, take all the compliments for the food being delicious, and admonitions for being tasteless or insipid. I never saw him laugh. The wife often felt uncomfortable at his behaviour. He always dressed well, flaunted long hair and wasn’t like his ilk who generally have a crew cut. He also applied some cheap perfume.

One day, having served breakfast, he requested me to help him get his new scooty registered. I knew that he had purchased one just about a year back which had met with an accident. I asked him what was wrong with his scooty. “It was old, rickety and mangled sir,” he said. I smiled and asked my staff officer to help him.

I remember the staff officer had a kind of smirk worn on him when he nodded in the affirmative to help him. Later, he told me that the cook was otherwise quite rich. His two sons were abroad and they kept sending him money. He had married twice in the past and stayed with his third wife, in a private house, though a quarter was available for him in the Police Lines. Life, it seemed, was quite comfortable for him.

Three days later, he did not report for duty and his substitute came to my residence. On enquiry, it was found, that on the newly acquired scooty, he was going to a friend’s place to celebrate, when on a speed-breaker, the two-wheeler skidded, leaving his wife dead. He remained unscathed and the scooty undamaged. He appeared quite shattered and did not stop crying even for a moment before me. The tragedy seemed to have had affected him profoundly.

I came to know about a week later that he had sold his scooty which had met with an accident. He went on leave for a week and then appeared in his usual smartly dressed form with his hair dyed when he reported back. I did not deem it proper to ask about his newfound avatar, but I was curious.

When I sat in the car to reach office the next day, my staff officer smilingly told me that the cook’s new young wife had joined him in matrimony. There was a long pause when I resumed conversation with my staff. The cook’s words, “It was old, rickety and mangled sir,” kept ringing in my ears.