The evening we arrived here cold and tired from the long trip, the rest house looked like a piece of heaven. To be honest, anything with four walls and a roof would look appealing after the journey, the last long leg of which had us mostly white faced and chewing knuckles. A friend of a friend had loaned us his Maruti 800 and never a better vehicle was made for these hills, but more on that another time.
As we pulled up the drive way, a wiry oldish man stood up from his perch a little above on the hillock. I told Manu to confidently approach him and ask him to open a room for us. We did not have a reservation and I wasn’t going back down the road we came, even if it meant trying fake authoritative instructions and failing that shameless groveling at the man’s feet. The man, chowkidar of the rest house, was perhaps more used to phonies like me than I gave him credit for. He said he’s open the guest house but there was no food, so we’ll have to make arrangement for that. Fine by us. Quick introductions were made and Shayam Lal, the chowkidar brought a bunch of keys and asked us to follow him.
As we entered I thought I heard a baby cry. I asked if there was someone else staying there. “No” came a brisk reply. Again in a minute, there it was ,the unmistakable sound of a baby crying. By now we were inside the roofed structure and Shayam Lal was busy unlocking doors and opening windows. It looked like a small place and there was no one around. But then again, there it was- the baby. “Great” I thought," I’ve landed myself into one of those haunted rest houses on a secluded hill where I will most likely get killed before reel two of my life begins” I asked again, “Is there someone else here because I hear a baby crying”. Shayam Lal smiled, for the first time revealing his crooked yellow teeth and twinkling eyes. “It isn’t a baby…it’s a lamb”. He opened the door to the living room and there it was-A tiny black lamb, shivering, hiding under a plastic chair and calling out to its mother.
“I wasn’t expecting any guests and one of the village women left it here for me to watch. It is windy and cold outside so I brought him in here. She’ll be back soon to take it away. The women from the village go down hill every day these days to pluck mehandi leaves. Did you know the going rate for Mehandi these days is Rs.55 a kilo?”
“Really? I did not know that”, I said.
I would listen to many more stories and theories from Shayam Lal in the next few days.
“India never really got its freedom” Shayam Lal declares one morning as he hands us steaming glasses of tea on the steps of the guest house.
“No?” I say rhetorically. I know this will be a long conversation so I turn the chair towards him. Shayam Lal tucks his tray under his arm and stands crossing his legs like his namesake God.
“For many years I worked at the rest house in Sarahan. It’s a bigger, better guest house than this one and that’s the one where the important people come. The Governors, Chief Ministers, Collectors. I was a cook. A cook with no training. All the cooks are supposed to go to the training centre in Mashobra but I never went. I learned everything on the job and no one ever found out that I wasn’t trained.” He smiled his impish smile.
“This one time the collector’s family came for a holiday. The day they arrived the collector’s Missus called me and asked me what all I could make so I told her anything you ask. She said she wanted Choley Bhaturey for breakfast and she wanted the cholas to be dark brown like in the hotels. I thought to myself, $#%&, how do I go about this? We don't get the kind of spices you people get in the plains. Anyways, I figured something out and next day when I served them breakfast, she was stunned! It was just as she expected. The Governer’s entourage had demands like Shahi Paneer, something I had never made. We would get calls from Shimla even before these big government officers arrived, telling us to make this and that, all new fangled stuff. When these groups arrived we were expected to be on our feet all the time. There were times when we would get no sleep. We’d work through the night and they would start asking for stuff again at dawn.
It was hell. I asked for a transfer to this place. My eyes had started watering all the time The smoke in the kitchen, the constant chopping of onions that’s what did it, I know. Even when I wasn’t cooking my eyes would water. When the man who came to drop me here asked me if I was sure I wanted to stay, I said yes and to this date I like being here more than the big rest house in Sarahan. I tell you the British, the white people, they are more considerate. I wish they had stayed.”
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