The Incident of the Wine Bottles

IT ALL BEGAN WITH THE CUP OF MILK. THE HALF-DRUNK cup of milk with Horlicks, to be precise. The cup was an old one, one of the first ones Rohan and I had bought together. It was white with an elongated human figure in glazed reds and yellows, its arms reaching high. Neither I nor Rohan, nor the girls cared for Horlicks, Rohan and I because we had grown up drink­ing milk with Horlicks thrice a day and could no longer stand it and the girls because they had never had it to begin with and preferred the sweeter, more chocolatey Hershey’s or Swissmiss.

Yet, there was the undeniable half-drunk cup of Horlicks on the kitchen counter and there was Kannan, one of the driv­ers, hastily withdrawing through the back door as I entered the kitchen. And there were the women, conscientiously, pronouncedly busy, plying iron and spray-on starch, knife and potato peeler with extra diligence after the initial confusion at my unexpected entry. All except Raji, that is who stood with her back to the sink, arms dangling by her sides.

I had hired the three of them to work as house-staff from an agency in Bombay Central, its signboard proclaiming speciali­sation in “domesticated help”. Domesticated suits us perfectly, Rohan had quipped when I mentioned it, you’d understand domesticated, the wild variety would have been a challenge. Raji was the first one I had hired and trained to run the simple but precise machinery of my home, the others I had left to her to instruct. When I hired them, each of the women had an individual personality, a life-story, food preference, special deity which they established in the kitchen window, feast and fast days, favourite film stars. But at some point in time, the three fused into a collective mass, making the same excuses for the dust on the Chinese ivory carvings and for small sums miss­ing from the household kitty, falling sick with similar ailments by rota and suffering family problems resulting in identical requests for money. That was when Rohan had started refer­ring to them as ‘the women’.

My daughters had a playdate with friends from the nursery they had attended till last year, the city stifling any opportunity for spontaneity by its pace, traffic and distances. I had set out painting material and the girls were happily occupied painting round red suns rising behind triangular brown hills and I had come to the kitchen to fetch juice for them. It was just easier to do it myself than explaining the different ones each of the girls had demanded. Ordinarily I would not have noticed, or indeed minded, the cup, Rohan’s constant, and valid, grudge being my unobservant, blind, overly permissive ways, but for the visible consternation among the women which had made me glance around the kitchen more keenly than I would have. The two busy ones paused and cast furtive looks towards Raji as I looked at the cup. Was Kannan drinking milk in the kitchen, I asked casually, still unable to understand the reac­tion to my entry. If they had answered truthfully and said yes, for there was hardly any room for doubt, the matter would have ended there. But Raji denied with some vehemence and turned sullen when I pointed to the cup by the plate-holder. I was puzzled and somewhat annoyed that she should think me gullible enough to believe her lies and not the truth of my own eyes. Frowning, I opened the fridge and took out sweet limes and watermelon. As I turned back, my hands full of fruit, I noticed the women drawn together in a conspiratorial knot. I asked rather sharply what the matter was. They moved away and Sanichari, the oldest among them, got busy setting out the juicer, reaching down to the tray and glasses.

Raji arranged the glasses filled with juice on the tray. I asked her to pop a bowl of popcorn in a bit and set the bowl out on the dining table together with cups of warm chocolate milk. At the mention of milk, Sanichari’s eyes went to the cup on the counter and Raji’s face became heavier. She nodded and turning towards the sink got busy washing utensils. Now usually Raji considers washing dishes beneath her dignity, it is Sanichari or Priya, the most pleasant and well-spoken of the three, who are assigned the task. Also the lunch dishes had been washed already, so I wondered about the kadhahi she was diligently soaping. Then I remembered the aroma of flour being roasted in ghee which had greeted me as I had stepped into the kitchen. The girls loved Raji’s halwa, cooked in ghee and milk and studded with almonds and raisins. So I said if she had already made halwa for the evening snack, that was ok and there was no need for popcorn. At this Raji turned around. Her face was like a swollen cloud, her hands dripped water and bubbles from the dish-washing liquid onto the kitchen floor. “People cannot bear my happiness and must go filling your ears with their false tales and you must go believing them. People are jealous and if they want my job they should say so instead of poisoning your heart against me. I eat the rice from the night before with salt and water but people cannot see me having that in peace. They would like to see me starve, that will give people comfort, that will satisfy them. I won’t be accused of cooking fifty-six dishes for my meal. And all those who have told you these lies, their mouths are filled with ashes and their hearts with thistle thorns and their minds with rotten garbage.” I was shocked at the vehemence of her reaction and felt more at a loss than ever. All the years we had spent abroad had tutored me into efficient, sterile ways and had unseated my ability to deal with such rawness. I don’t know what’s wrong here today, I said and retreated to the girls’ room. I spent the afternoon drawing their favourite cartoon characters and making silly rhymes to go with the drawings. The girls were especially pleased with my verse efforts and each of them gave me a hug and a kiss, leaving marks of paint on my shirt and sticky juice on my cheeks and nose. I felt soothed by their softness, by the comfort of their simple, reciprocal love after the unpleasant mysteries in the kitchen.

EVERYTHING SEEMED normal when Rohan returned from work. After I had tidied away the usual confusion of Rohan’s things—tie, wallet, cufflinks, mobile, belt and sundry papers and settled the girls with a jigsaw puzzle, I took his half cup of tea out to the balcony where he relaxed on the rocking chair. The sky was darkening and the mood-lights among the potted palms and bougainvillea, tulsi and neem had been switched on. I sat on the little footstool and told him about the incident earlier in the day, more puzzled than angry by Raji’s reaction. Rohan’s eyebrows rose as I finished and he said there was nothing to be puzzled about. “It is quite clear what’s happening. There is nonsense going on and you need to keep a tighter check on the women. You know that you don’t handle them firmly enough. You are either too soft or too rigid. These people live at a far more basic level and don’t merit your wast­ing time on their motives. The important fact is that they are taking far too many liberties and Kannan has no business in the kitchen. I will settle him first thing tomorrow morning but you need to pull up the women, get them back in line.”

These were Rohan’s usual reproaches when it came to my handling of household matters. And he wasn’t wrong. Rohan is one of those lucky ones whose quick, autocratic ways, the almost imperious authority and bluntness, are found endear­ing by those around him. They hang upon his words of praise and stretch themselves to earn them. My habit of analysing everything almost threadbare, not only the actions of others but my own reactions to them as well, he looks upon with ex­asperated scorn. As dinner was served and it was a school night, I decided to do the pulling-up and getting-in-line the next day.

In the business of the morning—readying the girls for school, Rohan’s morning routine, the myriad small but signifi­cant strokes that set up the day’s canvass, I did not find the op­portunity to speak to Raji about yesterday. I also thought it was perhaps too early in the day to rake up unpleasantness. I was also in a hurry, I volunteer at the girls’ school and this morning had agreed to pick up my partner. It was late by the time I got home. The girls had rehearsals for the school play and as part of the organising committee, I was there checking costumes, handling props and prompting from the wings. It was also submission day for assignments for the teaching course I was doing. Though unrelated to my degree in Philosophy, I had enrolled in the course upon Rohan’s encouragement. It would help build your engagement with the girls’ school, he had said, very useful. The next day Rohan was down with a sore throat and we had martial law in the house with everyone walking on tiptoes and rallying round with hot drinks, towels and the steamer when he rang the bell. A couple more days passed and then Rohan was travelling. In the absence of his prodding, I let the matter of the milk cup drop. Raji was back to being her normal self. If anything, she was more at­tentive when I was around.

The weekend after the milk incident, we had a small dinner party. Rohan is fond of throwing these parties for a select few, the people he likes or wants to like. I chose the menu and set the women to begin preparations before the Maharaj arrived to cook. Maharaj is an excellent cook but has his own foibles, one of which is disrupting the tidy order in the kitchen. It causes Rohan’s blood pressure to rise to see the kitchen messy. I therefore get all the basic peeling, chopping, grinding and pureeing done beforehand, setting out everything neatly in containers and reducing Maharaj’s opportunity to festoon the kitchen with peels and rinds and anoint its surfaces with purees and pastes.

Everything was well in hand and I was doing the flowers, violet and mauve carnations and roses for the dining area, tall orange birds of paradise for the living room and fragrant ra­jnigandha for rest of the house and for the lobby, when Rohan came striding out of the pantry. Without his saying a word, I knew something was very wrong and quickly went over the list of tasks in my head. Had I forgotten something? “Have you checked the wine fridge recently?” he demanded. I admitted I hadn’t. Wines were Rohan’s department. He was passion­ate about them and collected them painstakingly, going to wine-appreciation evenings, pouring over catalogues and brochures from wine companies, checking the vintages and placing orders. I thought perhaps someone meddled with the temperature of the wine fridge, causing some precious liquid to turn rancid. “For your information, the top shelf of the fridge is empty. They were there till a couple of days ago when I had put the Soju in. That’s gone as well. Some twenty bottles gone, and those were the best ones, I had collected them over years. I found this on the back of the shelf.” He held up a piece of thick, dark coloured glass. “Some bottles must’ve broken when they were wrenched out of the holders. Twenty odd wine-bottles disappeared from the house and no one knows a thing.” He was livid and I was in the dock, along with the women, for be­ing negligent. I immediately called them and got the expected vehement denials. No one had touched the wine fridge, it was the receptacle of the devil’s evil juices. Why would they want anything to do with it? The guests were expected shortly and nothing more could be done just then.

The evening went well on the surface. The women tripped on the rugs occasionally and forgot to hand out serviettes and mixed up the chutneys that went with the starters but not out of the usual. Only I noticed the tightness around Rohan’s eyes when he served wine to our guests.

Next morning over break­fast Rohan asked whether I had spoken with the women about the wine bottles again. I hadn’t. I wasn’t sure what to say to them after their denials, after all one cannot accuse without any proof. Rohan let out a pained sigh and rang the bell. When the women assembled, he said he knew they were aware of the fate of the missing wine. “You better confess yourself, if I get the police involved, you won’t find the going easy. The fact is all of you have too little to do and too much to eat. You are treated too well, particularly by your madam here, she lets you eat whatever you please and lends you money whenever you ask. And this is how you reward us? You think you can fool me like you do your madam and take advantage of her kindness? I have a good mind to hand all of you over to the police. All of you think it over. Tomorrow first thing I will call the police.” Rohan leaned back into his easy chair and picked up the newspaper. The women stood around for a few moments and then dispersed.

Priya was the first one to come to me as I sat reading a book by the window later that day. She was the youngest of the three and with the hardest luck. She had lost her husband two years ago in a freak accident when her brother-in-law backed the taxi he co-owned over her husband. She and her two small children lived with her parents-in-law. She was the only one who did not stay with us, she went home in the evening to cook and take care of her children and her parents-in-law. She looked at me with her frank eyes and said she was never one to carry tales. I put away my book and listened carefully. “I go home every evening, madamji, anyone would think I have taken the bottles. But why would I take them? I don’t have a man at home to drink. Already I have a mountain of misfortune, why would I add to my bad deeds from earlier life, to suffer like this in the next life? Madamji, you don’t know what goes on when you are out and babas are at school. Raji talks on the phone and watches TV all day and Sanichari and I do all the housework. If you don’t believe me, ask Sanichari. Raji cooks special food for that Kannan. The other day when you saw him drinking milk in the kitchen and asked about the halwa, she thought we had put you up to it. So now we get only rice and water for lunch. She goes out every afternoon with him and sometimes takes bags filled with god only knows what. Neither Sanichari nor I dare ask her, she threatens us all the time. Kannan has threat­ened me too. He told me if I open my mouth to you, there might be another accident and my children will become orphans.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You can ask Sunil, mad­amji,” she said, “he was there, he heard everything.” I looked at Priya’s round flushed face as she stood twisting the free end of her saree around her bony, work hardened fingers and thought of her small children, a four-year-old boy and a little girl who was not yet two and who was born after her father had died, of her life in the small, flimsy shanty behind the pricey residential complexes, where she lived with the brother-in-law who had killed her husband and his parents who regarded her as ill-luck personified, blaming her for the death of their son. I asked her to send Sunil up.

SUNIL WAS THE second driver, he worked part time for us and had hinted frequently that he’d like a full-time posi­tion. A sharp, wide-awake person and a character. He used the car-freshener liberally on himself, you could smell him from a mile away, never wore his uniform, his bright, flowered shirts flaring like a beacon among the drab Khakis and whites of the other drivers idling under the old Raintree in the driveway. I suspected he played around with the petrol account, the car was perpetually thirsty for fuel under his care. On the other hand, he knew every nook and cranny of the ill-organised city and could remember any place he had ever driven us to. He confirmed Priya’s account, he had heard the entire conversa­tion and had told Kannan off for threatening a widow woman. But his anger was towards Raji. He said Kannan was all right before Raji began her shenanigans. She called Kannan on the mobile all the time and cooked him food, sneaked him in the house late at night, he himself had seen her hold his hand and… I stopped him here, I had heard enough. “That Raji has taken all the bottles,” he asserted, “she is a witch, madamji, you have no idea what she is capable of…” Spittle flecked his mouth, his eyes glared angrily.

If all this was true and going on for so long, why had no one told me before, I wondered after he left. The reason, as Rohan would no doubt have pointed out, was because I appeared uninterested in what was going on under my very nose.

Next to come was Raji. Her bucktoothed face was down­cast and her doe-eyes swollen and bruised looking. I had a soft spot for Raji and not just because she had been with me the longest. Being sceptical and lax myself in following rituals which intervened with work-days and school-days, dinners or concerts, I admired her unquestioning belief and strict ad­herence to them. She would wake up at five in the morning to draw beautiful patterns with red, yellow, indigo and white powders outside the door on festivals days, a specific one for each festival, cook sweet kheer on Raksha Bandhan and cold meals for Sheetla Ashtami, bring flowers for my hair on Karva Chauth and dress the girls up as Krishna on Janmashtami. She was always the one to heat coconut oil with cloves and cinnamon to massage a stiff shoulder or prepare hot drinks with coriander seeds and black pepper for a sore throat. She had ambitions, educated till middle school herself, she wanted to send her three children to an English medium school. She also wanted to buy her husband an autorickshaw and a refrigerator for her home back in the village. She vehemently denied all the accusations. She said she felt sorry for Kannan. “He is a mother-fatherless orphan, madam and his sisters are leeches sucking away all his mon­ey. They wouldn’t even help get him married. I was trying to fix a match for him with my niece but it didn’t work out on ac­count of his being Manglik. I had his birth chart seen by two pundits but both said his mangal was in the first house, his Mangal Dosh will harm his wife. I have only tried to help him but I never did anything wrong, madam. How can people talk such paap, such sin…” her eyes brimmed with tears.

Rohan questioned Kannan himself. He claimed he had nothing to do with Raji, wine bottles or anything else at all. “People talk nonsense, I got into a fight with Priya and Sunil because of all the nonsense they have been saying, Saar, Sunil wants my job, Saar, wants to kick me in the stomach, take my livelihood, saar…” Finally quivering before Rohan’s fury, he admitted to taking Raji out on Sundays and the occasion­al afternoon but he said it was all initiated by Raji. She called him, cooked him halwa and pulao, bought him Kannada CDs as a gift. No one had ever cared for him in that way. “What was I to do, Saar…? It wasn’t my fault, saar…”

After Kannan left, Rohan declared it was all just as he had suspected. The pantry was next to Raji’s room and the access to the service entrance was through her room as well, she had opportunity and temptation. “Of course, Kannan must have helped her, there’s no way she could have managed it all on her own, and I bet she has been taking other things too but you being you, you’ve just never noticed and it emboldened her to take my wine bottles, she needs to go, no question.” But why not Kannan, if he was complicit too, I countered.

“I know these things, I deal with people all day long,” Ro­han said impatiently, “Raji is the real cause. Firing her will put the fear of god in all the others. They have been completely spoilt and allowed to do as they please by you and this is the result,” he looked at me just as he would have looked at an erring subordinate at work, “You’ve been very lax, we must do something to re-establish your authority. I will warn Kannan, he is on his last chance, but it was the woman who initiated it and she should go.”

I couldn’t bear this any longer, my head, neck, shoulders all ached, I ached everywhere, I was exhausted. Perhaps I had been wrong, I shouldn’t have trusted anyone, shouldn’t have wasted time reading books and watching the rain, perhaps if I had measured out the rice for each one of the staff, marked the level of ghee in the container, boiled the milk myself, placed all dry fruits under lock and key and kept an eye on the service entrance, like competent, practical women, all this wouldn’t have happened.

Rohan asked Kannan up. “I am overlooking this nonsense,” he said sternly, “but only this once, you go even an inch out of line, I will kick you out. Without a reference. And hand you over to the police.” Kannan listened in silence, his head hanging, eyes downcast. At the end he apologised, promised to never give us a reason to be dissatisfied and left. He never once raised his eyes, never once looked anywhere except his shoes. Everything was done with such precision, foresight and firmness and was over so quickly.

Rohan was adamant that I should dismiss Raji myself. “The women should see that you could be tough, they must fear you, it’s the only way.”

Raji was summoned to the living room. Her eyes were red, her shoulders drooped. I tried not to think of her children’s school fees, the savings account in which she was accumulat­ing money for the autorickshaw, the photos of the refrigerator she had saved on her phone. I told her that we had considered everything and that she had to leave. She will be paid the full month’s salary and Sunil will drop her at the railway station. Raji’s eyes filled, tears spilled down her face but she said noth­ing. Rohan gave me a stern look. This was evidently not firm or tough enough to strike fear in the hearts of the women who were lingering in the kitchen and whose pale reflections I could see in the windowpanes.

Raji was packed and gone by the evening. Priya had agreed to stay in temporarily along with Sanichari. I decided to put off looking for a replacement till the weekend and didn’t go for my class that day. Instead, I went around the house taking stock, tidying up, setting a fridge-cupboards-bathroom cabinet cleaning schedule, checking whether the clothes have been aired properly, making a list of appliances needing servicing. I went into the pantry to check the jars of pickles and podis. As I struggled to get the lid of a dehumidifier box off, I looked around for something sharp. The door of Sanichari’s room opened into the pantry and I noticed the sewing box lying open on the floor. I stepped in to retrieve a pair of scissors and noticed a strong smell. Sniffing for the source, I bent down to pick up the sewing box, I saw something colourful balled up in a bundle under the bed. Curious, I pulled it out. It was a flowered shirt and a pair of trousers, stained a deep burgundy and smelling of stale wine. I straightened up and caught sight of the women’s blanched faces in the doorway.

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