Of the house staff, I got to know Sanjay first. He is our...."houseboy", as Bhuwan referred to him, since he cleans our room each day, makes the bed, and brings us coffee. He has the uncanny ability to come in to clean our room just as I'm settling down to meditate...so we sometimes end up talking instead. Sanjay doesn't speak a lot of English, but enough for us to have many spirited conversations, both of us laughing, often for no reason at all. Interacting with Sanjay reminds me of being in Jr High School, where you develop an ability to have eye contact conversations from across the classroom, while trying hard not to giggle out loud. During mealtimes, Sanjay will pass by and catch my eye, and both of us will immediately smile like two mischievous teenagers. I feel like I know him somehow, perhaps from a past lifetime, when I was the server and he was the guest, and now we are just getting a cosmic kick out our current incarnation....One day during a long conversation with him about marriage, family, work, and such, I found out that he is 23 years old--hardly a boy--and is from a nearby village where his parents still live. He has a married brother and married sister, both living in Dehradun. He works from 7am to 11pm every day of the week, and will occasionally get a day off to see his siblings, depending on how many guests are at Shaheen Bagh. Once a year he gets to see his parents. He makes 2000 rupees a year working here (which comes out to be 11 cents per day, US), but with room and board--and tips from guests--it is probably considered to be a pretty good job. He's been here for four years, so I would suppose it is. He sleeps on the kitchen counter at night--the only staff member to sleep in the main house, and is the "night guard" to answer the phone or let late arriving guests in the house. He has an iPod, wears NIKE shoes, and has a studded NIKE wallet which is attached to his jeans with a chain. (He admitted both were knock-offs, which Allan confirmed.) By all intents and purposes, he looks much like any 23 year old in America, as many of the youth in India do. One evening Allan and I invited Sanjay to watch the Indian movie, Lagaan, with us. He accepted our invitation, but was obviously uncomfortable. It took him awhile to sit on the sofa (the farthest edge of it, mind you) and was restless for the first half hour. Maybe it's easier to keep a distance from guests. Maybe it was our age difference. Maybe it was the movie (a great but long movie if you get the chance to rent it) since he actually prefers action movies rather than period movies about Indians and the British engaging in a cricket match over taxes (Lagaan means tax). But for me, it was good to share a friendly evening outside of our normal roles of staff and guest.
Rajesh, as I mentioned earlier, serves our three meals each day. Over time, he has learned what foods we like and will even have the cook, Sankar, make us something special if we request it, like a batch of pecora. He speaks much better English than Sanjay, but it is still limited. He has worked at the Bagh for five years, and hopes to someday open his own restaurant next to the house he lives in with his mother, uncle, and grandmother. He is 27 years old, supports his family (a common thing for children to support their parents), and as soon as he is more financially stable, his mother will start looking for his bride. (Many Indian men don't get married until they are in their 30's, and pretty much all marriages are arranged by the respective families.) Rajesh has such a sweet and humble nature that if I had an available niece that wanted to move to India, I'd line them up. Rajesh escorted Allan and I down to the nearby stream one early evening, and we spent about an hour answering his questions about America. When he found out that Allan is still friends with his "ex", and that they even get together for dinner, he covered his mouth in shocked surprise, and told us that in India, if you get divorced, you never see your ex again! We explained that some divorces in America end that way, but ours did not...Rajesh asked to see our homes, so we showed him the few pictures we had on our computer, and googled images of Portland so he could see that too. When I told Rajesh that I will miss him when we leave, he told us that he will miss us too. Rajesh is curious to know how Indians are treated in America (especially with all the reports of Indians being attacked in Australia), and I do believe that if he could he would move to the USA in a second. "America is so beautiful." he says. Just hearing the guys talk about America has given me a whole new appreciation for my own country.
Sukhdev is also a "houseboy" and often helps Sanjay clean our room or bring us coffee. He is probably in his early 20's, has floppy black hair that often hangs in his eyes, and seems to be the most devout Hindu here. He has the symbol for "OM" tattooed to his right hand, and each morning he will light a candle and incense at the alter they have upstairs, ring the bell, and say a brief prayer. He has worked here for almost 2 years, and is the best cleaner of the bunch. Sukhdev speaks no English, and at the beginning of our stay, would hardly look at us. I wondered if this was because we were two men sharing a room, and that notion made him uncomfortable? (Though I do sleep on a sofa in the sitting room.) But then one day he brought in some water for us to drink, and as he was leaving I said, "Shukriya (thank you in Hindi), Sukhdev," and he turned around in surprise that I spoke his language, and gave me the biggest smile. From then on, he would give me a smile now and then, and one day he brought me a lei of flowers he made from blossoms in the garden. I put it around my neck, and asked if I could take a picture of the two of us. He obliged, illustrated here.Sankar is the house cook, and Kundan is his helper. I don't really interact with either of them, except to tell Sankar how much I enjoy his delicious meals. Rajesh told us that the kitchen is "our kitchen", but I do not go in there unless I am invited. The other night, Sankar invited us in, and showed Allan and I how to make pecora. He made it look so effortless, and in a matter of 5-10 minutes, we were eating them. One unusual Indian dessert they serve here is roasted vermicelli noodles cooked in milk and sugar, much like rice pudding. Speaking of milk, before reaching India, Allan and I were basically vegans. The only dairy products we ate were a bit of butter on our pancakes, and a dusting of cheddar cheese on our tostadas. Now we will have consumed more dairy and eggs in our 3 weeks here than we have in the past 3 years. But I will say that the butter in India is the best butter I have ever tasted, and the yogurt appears to be housemade. All milk is served boiling hot, even for our cornflakes. And the paneer cheese, which is often served in the curry dishes, it unlike any cheese that I am used to. We find the texture to be exactly that of tofu! Allan and I wonder what soymilk will taste like in our coffee and cereal when we arrive in Italy...soymilk is rather unheard of in India, unless you find it in a store frequented by westerners.
Bhuwan, the manager, is like Ricardo Montalban from Fantasy Island. He commands the show, and makes us feel welcome and attended to. He is 31, married with 2 children, and lives about 10 kilometers from the Bagh. He has pinned me down for several in-depth conversations about America, and has also shared with me some of the cultural aspects of India--the most important being marriage. He says that Uttaranchal (or Uttarakand), the state we are visiting, is considered to be the "honest" state, and theft is almost unheard of. Bhuwan, like all of the guys here, speaks of a love of the country hillside, rather than the hustle of the city, and that is why he stays. The air is clean, the temperature is moderate, and people are kind. I would have to say that I have found this to be true.
I rarely see or interact with the gardeners other than to say hi or nod "hello" as I stroll the garden paths or take a dip in the river-water pool. All of the gardeners are weathered older men, with the exception of one young guy. They will often sit in groups on the lawn for several hours pulling weeds, talking in hushed tones--probably about the curious antics of the elite that say here. There is one very tall, thin gardener with silvery hair who is missing a few teeth. He gives me the sweetest smile when we make eye contact, and I am wondering if he is really a sage. The others seem to listen to him with rapt attention during their weed pulling pow wows, and if I understood Hindi, I think I'd like to sit for an afternoon and listen to him myself. Such sweet humble energy comes from this man, and I would like to know more about him. (I found out today that his name is Darshan, which means "The radiant glance of the Master.")
Why do I take such an interest in the staff here? Why have I introduced them to you in this blog? I suppose that after three weeks, I feel like they are my new friends, and I have wanted to share what their lives are like behind the "Good Morning, Sir". An extended stay here has brought their world more into focus for me, showing me a small slice of life in Northern India. But as we've become friends, it becomes harder for me to stay in my role as guest, harder for me to remain emotionally detached, especially with Sanjay and Rajesh, whom I've gotten to know the best. Their lives seem so hard to me, working all the time. I will absent-mindedly ask them, "Have you seen this movie? Have you been to Rishikesh? Do you meditate?" The answer is always the same: "I don't have time. I am always working." I think of my coveted "alone time", and how much freedom I have to go here or there, pursue my dreams, contemplate my navel...and still have room to complain if something doesn't go my way. I hope to carry this lesson with me, and remember those that don't have the freedoms that I do, and yet still show up each day with a smile, graciousness, and humility. One morning, Allan suggested to Rajesh that we cook the food and serve him breakfast, and it was clear that he was lost on this concept--much like mothers who usually still end up doing everything on Mothers Day, because, well, that's the role we're all used to! But I would be oh-so-happy if someday Rajesh or Sanjay could visit America, and allow me to serve them as I have been served here at Shaheen Bagh.
Namaste!
From left, Rajesh, Sukhdev, Kundan, Sankar, Sanjay, and Bhuwan.
No comments:
Post a Comment